The Snape Family Christmas Special
by LilLolaBlue
Summary: Ho Ho Ho! Merry Christmas to my readers with this extension from HP& Naked Lunch in which we Meet the Grangers, Harry has Chrimble in larvely Liverpool, we attend a Hogwarts Faculty party, Ginny goes over the wall,& Lucius visits the Burrow.
1. It's Been A Long Day

**Chapter One: It's Been A Long Day**

Christmas usually put Snape in a rotten mood, and this year was to be no exception.

In the wee hours of the morning after the Yule Ball, Snape wasn't doing some heavy balling of his own with Hermione Granger, celebrating their coming-out party.

She was still in her dress, in her bedroom, wondering where the fuck he was, and Snape was wandering around the grounds in his battered old Alchemist's greatcoat, brooding, smoking, and freezing.

It wasn't his going public with his affair with Granger that was bothering him; Snape was not the sort of man to concern himself with what other people thought of what he considered the Hello! Magazine sort of details of his life. No, he was deeply troubled by the events of the past few days; they had revealed large, insulting chinks in the ironclad armour of his foolproof plan to bring down Voldemort.

One might expect hot-headed grandstanding from red-headed Ginny Weasley. The Killer Queen had a nose for blood and a great dislike of Death Eaters. Properly placed, her bloodlust, bravado and love of the old ultraviolence could be great assets to the war effort.

Also great liabilities. He had seen the seeds of her unholy partnership with Granger and the Ministry Mutiny; the combination of the two was not good. Hermione was brilliant, calculating, clever and ruthless. With a weapon of mass destruction the likes of the Gryffindor lioness at her disposal the two of them could wreak havoc on the enemy, but also on his plans.

They had to be brought to heel.

But can you teach the brightest witch in her year to heel, much less a lioness? And Miss Weasley was second only to Hermione as far as academic standing. If there was one thing a brilliant young woman didn't want to hear fuck-all about, it was what some old man had to tell them.

At least, though, the girls had done something. Snape was happy to discover that Weasley was a great drummer; he wasn't great at anything else except for being Potter and Granger's general dogsbody. He was a brave young man when his back was against the wall, but not having seen some of the worst horrors the world had to offer, he was, understandingly if disappointingly, squeamish at the rather grotesque, prolonged and bloody death of Oliver Crich.

Potter was a different story. Between fighting dragons and dementors, not to mention battling basilisks, and his harrowing years as a drunken, brawling, brutal gutter junkie, he had, regrettably, seen it all. His squeamishness was disturbing. Yes, most blokes aren't too thrilled about seeing their bird turn into a lioness and tear a man to pieces with the same jaw they polish your nob with, but he could have done something besides sit there like a little girl in a pink dress.

Maybe sobriety had knocked the cobblers off of him.

Snape paced and chain-smoked and cursed to himself until he dropped his fag because his fingers were numb, and then he went back into the castle as the first grey fingers of the wintry dawn crept across the wan cold sky.

Fortunately for him, Albus Dumbledore was an early riser, so Snape made for his office.

Dumbledore was cheerily hanging Christmas decorations, and happily whistling _Jingle Bells._

He couldn't help but notice that Severus looked half-frozen, exhausted, and extremely pissed off.

"Good morning, Mr. Scrooge! I see you're in your usual Happy Christmas mood." Dumbledore joked.

"I've been thinking over this whole Crich affair, and there are serious problems with the plan, Albus." Snape began.

"I wouldn't call them serious problems, Severus. Still, our young Order members are going to have to get a lot better at following plans, directives and instructions if The Plan is going to succeed. Hermione and Ginny have to be made to realise they can't just go and do whatever they wish, just because they think it might work."

"Precisely. Not to mention that Potter's skills are rusty and Ronald Weasley's are nonexistent. For all their macho posturing, they just sat there and let the women do all the work. All those boys are good as is bluffing and chasing bints. Weasley can't drum his way out of battle and Voldemort is not going to be impressed by the size of Harry's plonker. Potter's not his type. "

"Don't worry, my boy! When you come back from visiting with your family, we'll have to devise an exercise for all of them. I might have something in mind. Now, try to cheer up. You've proclaimed your love for Hermione to all the world, and in a few months time you'll be a free man and the war will be over and won. Now, go get some rest. You look awful, Severus."

Dumbledore went back to orchestrating his decorations with his wand, and humming, so Snape knew the meeting was over.

Snape opened the door to the office and set out, not knowing whether he was going to the Head Girl's room, or to his dungeon when he almost ran into Potter, who also didn't look like he'd had much sleep, and seemed more than a little distressed.

He did sort of a double take upon seeing Snape, then ran up to him, grabbing him by the lapels of his coat.

"Snape, its you! I never thought I'd be so happy to see me snarky Old Man in me life! You've got to hide me! I'm in a lot of trouble!" Harry exclaimed.

Without asking any questions, the Potions Master held his coat open.

"Get in the side pocket." He said.

Harry didn't ask questions, either. He put his hand into the pocket and before he knew it, _bang-zoom_, he was in Snape's coat pocket.

Snape casually buttoned his coat up and headed for the dungeon.

***

He carefully took off his coat and shook it lightly over the couch, and Harry tumbled out of it.

He had Snape's glasses on.

"Far out! These are the same prescription as mine." Harry observed, tearing open a packet of Mini-Chocolate Frogs he had found.

Snape gave Harry his round glasses and put his own square glasses back in his coat pocket.

"Can I open these? Me fags are by me bed."

"Go ahead. So, who wants to murder you? Is it an angry father, an irate brother, or the betrayed boyfriend?" Snape asked.

He sat down beside Harry, and they both lit up.

"Irate brother. Your wonderful godson, Malfoy, thought it would be really funny to send an album of rather large pictures and a pensieve to Bill Weasley showing me and his little sister doing some things that a man should never see his baby sister doing. And I thought I could trust those trees." Harry replied, ruefully.

"You can. But no tree will take a man over a wizard with Elvish blood." Snape reminded him.

"Nice of him to use it against me. I fucking hate Christmas. I hated it when I was a kid. Goddamn Dudley got fucking everything, and I got a card that cost one pound and threepence. I mean I like going to the Burrow and all, but I hate fucking Christmas. All that happy family shit. What if you don't have one? Bah, humbug!" Harry spat.

"I'm not so fond of it meself. Too many bad memories of Chrimble, being beat half to death not being the worst of the lot. Still, they may not be the happy family on the expensive cards, but they are me family, so I'm off. Your family as well, Potter. And the last time they had you for Chrimble you were in diapers."

"Do they know about me? Me grandparents and me great-grandparents? Are they all still alive?"

"They were as of me getting an owl, yesterday. Of course they know about you! You're the only grandchild, and the only great-grandchild. The last, best hope for the survival of the Snape-Prince genome. They've kept schtum all these years, just the way I have. But since I told them that you sussed me out, I've been inundated with owls telling me that if I don't show up wit the firstborn male child I might as well not show up at all. Seeing as how the Burrow might not be safe for you this year, you might as well tag along with me. You and Hedwig seem anxious as I am to get the fuck out of here."

"You don't know the half of it! Are you packed? Can I help? When do we leave?"

"Are you really that chuffed about meeting your relatives?"

Harry lit up, again.

"Well, I've never met anyone as barmy as I am. It'll be good to see where I come from."

Snape laughed in a thoroughly unpleasant way.

"That's what you say, now." He replied.

"I can't believe he did this to me! Who knows what Bill's like when he's mad, now. Goddamn Draco Malfoy. With friends like him, who needs enemies?"

Snape couldn't help it, he started to laugh.

Harry began to laugh, too.

It struck Harry that these months getting to know his wicked old screw of a father were the only happy family memories he ever had.

It made him wonder if Snape had any, considering his childhood, and the grandparents Harry was both wary of and excited to be meeting.

"So, how do you arrange your holidays?"

"We'll be at home until Christmas morning, then we come back here for Christmas dinner . Then their lot goes home and I stay, and get ready for the new semester."

"Who?"

"All of 'em. The whole family. None of them can cook a proper dinner. So Albus lets them eat here. And then we're all together. My dysfunctional, fucked up natural family and Albus and Minerva, my dysfunctional, fucked up foster family. Just like on the telly."

"Do you have any happy memories of your childhood, Snape?" Harry asked.

Snape blew a doubtful smoke ring at Harry.

"Where did that come from? Have you been watching those wretched uplifting Scrooge movies with Albus?"

"Yes, but that's not why. I got a present from Dudley and a rather nice card from Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon. They were really genuinely worried about me."

Snape sighed, resignedly.

"My parents were big fans of Monty Python. They watched it every week. The old man would come outside, or into me room, and come and get me, and we'd all sit on the couch and have fish and chips and watch Monty Python. The old man would give me a few sips of his beer, and during the commercials my mother would show me a new spell, or hex and if I could get it right before the end of the programme, I'd get a Twix bar. Both halves. After the Ministry made me a ward, and I wasn't allowed to see Mum and Dad, anymore, I used to watch Monty Python with Albus and Minerva in his office. Then I'd go back to my room and wait by the window for the family owl to arrive with a Twix bar. The Ministry never found out about that."

Snape didn't look like he was remotely close to tears, but you never knew how he was really feeling.

As for Harry, especially after watching all those versions of _A Christmas Carol_ with Dumbledore, who usually cried through the ending, Harry felt positively weepy.

"Don't start blubbering, on me, Potter. There's nothing wrong with crying, but you should never do it in front of anybody. Tears are a sign of weakness. Everyone has weaknesses, but you should never show them to others. Not even your father. When a man cries, he cries alone. And that goes double for a woman, if she wants to be taken seriously. Do you understand, Potter?"

Harry nodded.

"I wouldn't cry over anything so stupid. About me going home to meet the family with you. I'm all for it, but won't Voldemort find out?"

"Not if we take Muggle transportation to avoid being noticed. Besides, I always take Muggle transportation when I go home. I don't want everybody on God's Green Earth knowing where the fuck I live."

"Are we going to take the bus, or something?"

Snape looked at him like he was mad.

"No. I have a car. We'll drive."

"You know how to drive a regular Muggle car, Snape?"

"I have been driving a regular Muggle car since the age of eight, Potter. I was always the designated driver. The old man would ring the house up from the pub, and I'd tie the blocks he rigged up with straps to my feet, jump into the Mini he still drives around in and go pick them up."

Snape was smiling at the horrendous but humorous memory, and Harry laughed a little.

"I can help. I've got a Muggle driver's licence."

"No one drives my car but me, Potter."

"Ever?"

"You can have it when I'm dead. Now, I need to go and do the impossible, and shift Granger out of bed and make sure she's packed everything she needs. Which is not going to be fun, considering I stood her up last night. If I want to live to drive our lot 'ome, I'll have to get creative with her Time Turner. Now, you hide out here until after Bill's come to pick up his sister. Get Treacher to bring you your breakfast. Miss Weasley will take care of everything, I'm sure. She's smart enough to blag him, or obliviate him, and then you'll be in the clear. Still, you'd best take one of your Dad's secret passages to Hogsmeade, just in case Bill's on the prowl for you. Meet our Hermione and me at the Hog's Head at noon. Bring your trunk and your owl. Wear Muggle clothes. Don't tell anyone where you're going and wear your Invisibility Cloak so no one sees you until you see me. Especially Bill Weasley." Snape instructed.

Harry nodded, vigorously.

***

It had been quite a morning for Dumbledore, a very early morning, considering that Hermione Granger, still dressed in her Yule Ball clothes had knocked him up out of bed at five in the morning, seemingly on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

He managed to conduct her to his office, where she actually burst into tears, and he spent a good fifteen minutes hugging her and comforting her.

She was upset because it had only just occurred to her that her feelings regarding Severus Snape went a bit beyond casual fondness and convenience.

Later, he realised she'd been up all night waiting for Severus, and had likely worked herself into quite a state when he failed to appear.

A fine thing for him to do to the poor girl, take her to the ball and announce his intentions towards her to the world and then stand her up and leave her waiting for him all night, wondering where he'd got to. Hoping he didn't have second thoughts. Questioning herself as to whether she'd made the right choice.

But that was Severus for you. About as sensitive as a toilet seat, as Lily Evans had once observed.

Hermione was quite unusually upset when she came to see him, no doubt about it.

"I'm sorry, Headmaster, but I always promised myself I would never fall into the hideous trap of the conventional heterosexual monogamous lifestyle, where I'd be married at 20, a mother at 21 and find myself 35 and divorced with two kids and nothing to show for my life. The very idea that I may be in love with Snape or he with me makes me sick in my stomach. I despise sentiment. I can't get married. I have too much I want to do with my life!" she sobbed.

Dumbledore offered her a meringue from the special pastry drawer in his desk, and his enchanted bottomless Kleenex box.

"You have nothing whatever to worry about, Hermione. Severus knows you are a brilliant witch, and he shares the dreams you have for your future. He's been grooming you for acceptance to the Merlin School, and apprenticeship to him after university. And I must say I know Severus well enough to know he shares your horror of sentimentality, romance, and the conventional middle class lifestyle. I doubt very much that his love for you entails slavery in the kitchen and a Weasley-sized family. You two are quite well matched." Dumbledore assured her.

"But everybody knows about us, now. What if they think I'm, pardon my language, earning my academic credentials on my back?"

"Hermione, everybody knew about you and Severus, before. And no one in the Wizarding World would ever expect Severus Snape to give anyone anything they had not earned or did not deserve. If anything, the general consensus is that he's twice as, er, strict with you than anyone else just to prove to himself he's not playing favourites."  
"Do you really think so?" Hermione asked.

"I know so. I know Severus snape better than he knows himself. I raised him, after all." Dumbledore assured her.

"Then maybe you know where he is."

"Outside, somewhere, freezing and smoking and pacing. Don't go out looking for him, though, Hermione. He'll come in when he's ready, and not a second before. Now, you have a long trip back to Liverpool ahead of you, and you've had a quite eventful week. And you know Severus. Nothing fazes General Snape. He'll leave sharp at noon with or without you. Why don't you set your time turner back a few hours, have a nice bath and a cup of tea, and go to bed and get a good night's sleep?"

Hermione decided to take Dumbledore's advice.

She returned to her rooms, and set the time turner back to just before she'd left in a huff around two to storm the dungeon. Then she took off her dress and hung it up, took a bath, had a cup of tea and went to bed.

She fell asleep right away, just glad that the night was over.

***

As rough of a night as Snape and Hermione and Harry had, it was nothing compared to the one Moaning Myrtle had.

At first she was overjoyed for Ron when she heard how good the band sounded, coming up through the pipes, but as his usual hour came and went and most of the night came and went and there was no Ron, it occurred to her that now that they knew he was in a band, girls were gong to throw themselves at him. Girls who were still alive and well, all the time.

She really wanted to be noble about it, but coming as it did around the holidays, and considering how she felt about Ron, Myrtle broke down and did some ferocious, school-shaking moaning.

She made such a fuss that the other ghosts sent Nearly-Headless Nick up to the prefects bathroom to see what was the matter with her.

He found that the poor girl was completely incoherent, and he was attempting to comfort her, and assure her that the Weasleys were not that kind of family when Ron made a dramatic entrance, still dressed in his stage clothes.

"I could hear you crying all over the school! Did you think…oh, uh, hullo, Nick."

"You see, Myrtle, my dear? He's right here." Nearly-Headless Nick assured Myrtle.

As he glided out he spoke to Ron in a quiet but firm voice.

"See here, Mr. Weasley, if you break poor little Myrtle's heart the ghosts of Hogwarts will never let you have another peaceful night. We'll send the Baron after you until you're old and grey, and very near a ghost, yourself." He told Ron.

When they were alone, Ron ran over to the shade of Myrtle, and he was surprised that when he touched her, his hand didn't pass through her, rather she became flesh and blood.

"It's four. This isn't supposed to happen."

"Well, you weren't here between 12 and 3. It's always midnight, somewhere. I'm sorry, Ron. You never had women pay attention to you, and boys always went mad for me. I don't mind you having your fun, as long as I know you'll visit me sometimes."

"Visit you sometimes? Myrtle, I'm an old-fashioned bloke. When I love a girl, and she's my girl, she's the only girl in the world. What do I want with Lavender Brown, and that lot, when I have you?" Ron told her.

It looked like there were tears in Myrtle's eyes.

"How did we sound?" Ron asked.

"Amazing! And I love your outfit. A really good band really turns me on." Myrtle replied.

"When I figure out how to make you real again, all the time, you can be our singer. And after every gig, we'll go backstage and you can have your way with me behind the Marshall stacks while the roadies hold up the amps." Ron panted.

"Ooooo, how romantic!" Myrtle giggled.

"I love you, Myrtle. If I have to, I'll come to this fucking bathroom every night until the day I die." Ron promised.

Myrtle kissed him.

They had a lovely time, and Ron was late meeting Bill and Ginny.

He showed up just in time to see Ginny obliviating their brother.

"What was I saying?" Bill asked, quizzically, rubbing his beard.

"I'm not sure, Bill. You just stopped in the middle of a sentence."

She had a sack of some kind behind her back, and thrust it at Ron, who though he wasn't sure what it was, secreted it under his robes.

"Really? I must be getting senile in me old age. There you are, Ron. Ready to go?"

"Sure." Ron replied.

"I'll get your trunk, then." Bill said, still shaking his head.

Ron lingered with Ginny as Bill carried her trunk into the courtyard.

"Was that the evidence?"

"Yeah. I had to obliviate Bill. We'll get that lot home and then burn it. That little motherfucker Draco Malfoy!" Ginny spat.

"He's a right fuckin' cunt! I don't care if he's on our fucking side. When we get back, I'll get him into Myrtle's loo and she'll watch the door for us. I'll hold your coat and you can beat the fuck out of Malfoy. She'll do her bit loud enough to drown out his screams. Hell, I'll take a few shots at the little fucker, meself." Ron promised his sister.

They walked out into the courtyard.

Ginny's face brightened up.

"That's brilliant, Ron!"

"What are brothers for?"

Bill looked over his shoulder, and saw the nature of the grin on his little sister's face.

He smiled into the beard he'd grown to cover up some of his scars. He hadn't the heart to tell Ginny that he knew four different mental techniques to block attempts to obliviate him. Poor Harry was nowhere in sight. What did they think he was going to do, murder him? Of course, Bill knew that Harry and Ginny were together, and although he hadn't given it any thought, he assumed they didn't send all their evenings listening to Quidditch matches on the radio. He'd only looked and one picture, briefly, and packed the lot of it away. He'd brought the album and the pensieve to give back to his sister to let her dispose of it, or complain to the Headmaster abut Draco's tricks, but she didn't give him the chance.

She just smiled and pointed her wand at him before she even said hello.

Ginny was elaborating on what she was going to do to Draco, and Ron seemed all for it.

Bill decided that he wouldn't want to be Draco Malfoy for all the tea in China.

***

If Snape thought that he'd turn her Time Turner back about four hours and peacefully lie down beside Hermione and get a few hours of the deep and dreamless without her being any the wiser, he had another think coming.

She woke up when he got into the bed with her, and at first just happily rolled over to snuggle up, out of force of habit.

Then, she woke up.

"You berk! I'd be fucking furious with you if I wasn't so gobsmacked you'd try to pull a cheap trick like this on me? Where did you go all night, then?"

"What are you on about, Granger? It's only four. It took me an hour or so to put me suit and all away, proper like, and then I must' ave dozed urf, but as soon as I woke up, I come up to see you." Snape lied, mustering up some righteous indignation of the highest calibre.

"Bullshit! It's 4AM because you came in 'ere and used me Time Turner to make it 4AM! I was in Dumbledore's office at five or six, and it was around seven before I used the Time Turner to make it 2 so I could get some sleep! And you likely waltzed in around seven and tried to trick me into thinking it was 4!" Hermione accused him.

After being up all night, the numbers that Hermione rattled off swam around in Snape's head like the fleas in a miniature circus.

"Awright, you got me! Hermione, you're giving me a fucking horrible headache. I need to get some fuckin' sleep, I do have to drive us home…at some point." He confessed.

"You're just going to go to sleep?" she asked.

"You can have five minutes and I'll fall asleep on top of you, now, or you can wait until morning and have a proper shag." Snape explained.

"Good point. G'night, Sev." Hermione decided.

"This fucking day. It'll never end." Snape grumbled.

They went to sleep.

***

Snape was as good as his word. Lying back with a satisfied and far less crabby Hermione around nine, he was thinking that, thanks to the Time Turner, unless the parallel universe theory was sound, he was in the dungeon having a smoke with Potter at the same time as he was lying in bed with Hermione.

Or had that already happened.

Snape decided not to think about it. At any rate, his gear was packed into his car.

"Granger, what say I call Treacher and have him pack up your kit, and we roll over and go back to sleep?' he asked.

"You're awfully sleepy today, Snape. You're not coming down with flu, are you?"

"No. I haven't slept since the beginning of the week, so I'm knackered."

"How can you stay up that long?"

"Practise. TREACHER!"

The house elf apparated with a loud crack.

"There you are! Treacher has been looking for you everywhen! You should tell Treacher when you is fooling around with that Time Thingy!"

"Sorry. Could you pack up Miss Granger's kit, quietly? We need to get a few more hours of sleep." Snape asked.

"Certainly." Treacher agreed.

After his Master and Miss Granger fell asleep, Treacher crept into the bedroom and turned the Time-Thingy back to 4:30.

They needed their rest, and it would give hi the opportunity to clean Miss Granger's room, and Master's rooms, and pack.

If Master was going to give himself the odd extra hour here and there, so was Treacher.

After he did his extensive cleaning, laundry, folding and so on, Treacher went back to pack Miss Granger's trunk.

He wasn't sure how to pack for a lady, so he got Winky to come and help him.

"Is Treacher going with Master Snape in the car? Winky would like to ride in a Muggle car,"

"Muggles might Treacher. Treacher just apparates to the house. Do you think Miss Granger has this stuff out because she wants to pack it?"

"Yes. Look, Treacher has not packed any panties! Womens don't go places without their panties! Let Winky take over from here. Why is they making so much fuss?" Winky asked.

"Treacher doesn't know. Master should not worry that he has done something wrong. Why hide when there is no shame? Miss Granger is still young, and young people makes more of things than there is. She gets over it, you see." Treacher said, confidently.

"Winky thinks you is right. Winky thinks Miss Granger will be Treacher's mistress, someday." Winky ventured.

"Treacher hopes the gods hears Winky say that." He confessed.


	2. There's No Place Like Home

**Chapter 2: There's No Place Like Home **

Harry laid very low that morning, and made his way in almost complete silence as he took the secret passage to Hogsmeade.

He was actually early, and had been too spooked to eat breakfast, so he had lunch at the Hog's Head, and then ventured out into the cold December day to wait for Snape and Hernione.

He was informally dressed in his old-familiar military surplus parka and jeans and a Rolling Stones tee shirt with another shirt on underneath, and he wondered if Snape would get dressed up to go see his parents, and wear something formal.

He began to worry as to whether he should have worn something more formal.

Harry was relieved, then, to see that neither the Old Man nor Hermione were dressed up. They were both wearing their heavy Alchemist's military-looking frock coats. Hermione's was oxblood, and Snape's, of course, was black. With the triple drape in the back and the brass buttons; the whole nine yards.

Hermione had, of course, tied her mentor's record for youngest ever Master Magus of Alchemy in the Third Degree, right down to the day.

Hermione's coat was buttoned up to the neck and she had a brightly coloured chullo on. Snape wore no hat and his coat was open, revealing that he was wearing a black tee shirt and his old Slytherin school tie in a loose knot, and his equally old and scroungy black jeans. The brass buttons on the chest, cuffs, and epaulets on his alchemist's coat looked as though they had been recently polished, but that was probably Treacher's doing.

"What, no leather?" Harry asked.

"You're very funny, Potter. Get your trunk. C'mon we've not got all bleedin' day."

Hermione's trunk was floating along behind her and she carried an annoyed Crookshanks in a wicker cat carrier.

Harry felt obliged to grab her trunk, too, and followed them.

Snape led Harry out across the back where Aberforth kept his goats, and to an old shed. He muttered a password and the door opened.

Harry heard the purr of a very big engine and his mouth hung open in shock when a shiny, spotless, flawless 1955 Cadillac Coupe DeVille pulled up next to him.

"Nice, innit it?" Hermione commented.

"Fuck me!" Harry gasped.

It was black, all black, with black-tinted windows, black except for the gleaming polished chrome in which Harry could see his shocked face.

Snape rolled down the window; he looked like he was born in the driver's seat of the car.

The air was filled with the sounds of Deep Purple.

"Shotgun." Hermione announced.

She began to lug her trunk towards the back of the car, unwilling to go through the whole complicated moving charm, again.

"Where's your fucking manners, Potter?" Snape insisted.

Harry helped Hermione put her trunk in the boot, and she got in the car

"Granger, don't twiddle with my radio." Snape snapped.

Then he rolled down the window to yell at Harry.

"Well, don't stand there gawking, Potter. Put your things in the boot and let's go. Today, yunno?" He ordered.

Harry did as he was told.

The boot must have been magical, because it had Snape's old school trunk and Hermione's and there was plenty of room for his.

The inside of the car was just as immaculate.

Harry sat Hedwig's cage down beside Crookshanks' cat carrier , got in and shut the door.

"Brilliant! This is the coolest fucking car I've ever seen! Did you make any magical modifications to it?" Harry asked.

"I did away with the necessity of gasoline. And I put a spell on it so it won't get dirty, scratched torn or dented, inside or out. I also enchanted the boot, like Arthur's old car that you and young Mr. Weasley wrecked. Other than that, no. I enjoy driving." Snape replied.

"C'mon, please let me drive! Just a little while. Please, please, please?"

"No. And get your feet off me upholstery, or I will blast them off."

"Blimey, you're a regular fuckin' Father Christmas, ain't you, Snape?" Harry commented.

"More like Ebenezer Scrooge." Hermione opined.

"Bah, humbug!" Snape declared.

"Don't mind him. He's just gearing up for a few hours of road rage. And it's his usual Happy Christmas mood." Hermione told Harry.

"It's not me own fucking driving that bothers me. It's everyone else on the road. All of them in their Happy fucking Chrimble mood, driving like maniacs, in a big fucking hurry to go spend all their money they don't have on shit that's just like the shit they already have at home, going too fast or going too slow in the passing lane, like great globules of fat puttering along in their fucking minivans, all purulent and pasty, listening to Bing fookin' Crosby singing White fookin Christmas while they drink their special fucking three pound soy latte double choca mocha peppermint flavoured coffee fookin' bullshit…"

Snape launched into a protracted rant, and Harry decided to sit back and enjoy the floor show.

***

The only way in which Snape remotely reminded Harry of Uncle Vernon was in his philosophy of road trips, which was something like the Army'ss philosophy of marching to war. Go as fast as you can, and whoever dies along the way shows that they didn't have the blocks to begin with.

Aunt Petunia was the type who wanted to stop at every single unimportant milestone along the way, and take a picture of herself standing next to some old pile of rocks, or a decaying Roman Road, or some dessicated old manor where Charles II once rumped seventeen bints in one night at the age of 53, or what have you.

Uncle Vernon, on the other hand would have driven a jet-propelled race-car equipped with machine gun mounts and heat-seeking rockets, potty chairs in the seats and feedbags that came down from the roof, if he such things existed. He considered anyone wanting to stop along to way to eat or pee a great offence. The one time he ever broke the law was on long road trips. He even tried to get Aunt Petunia to piss on the side of the road.

Unsuccessfully, of course.

Such was Snape, except with much more swearing, ranting, and better taste in road music. Harry realised it wasn't car travel that made him sick, rather it the upwards of four hours of Barry Manilow and Elton John that you got on a car trip with his Aunt and Uncle.

They drove for three hours before he stopped, and Snape tried to get Hermione to piss by the side of the road, at which time she threatened to perform a temporary sex-change charm on him so he could se how he liked it.

Begrudgingly, Snape pulled off the highway, but he refused to stop long enough to eat, only to use the loo and get some snacks from a vending machine and then they were off again.

He managed the whole trip from the Highlands to Liverpool in 6 hours and 45 minutes, including the brief stop.

Harry would have been glad to stop anywhere after all that trip.

When Snape stopped the car he leapt out. He'd made the mistake of drinking two bottles of Coke on the second leg of the trip and he felt like he was going to explode.

Harry was ready to toddle off behind the nearest bush to answer the call of nature, but he wasn't so keen on it once he looked around.

He found himself in a very nice middle class suburb, in the driveway of a very nice fully detached house.

Harry had met Hermione's parents, but he had never been to Hermione's house, before.

He imagined this was it.

Dr. John Granger, who was outside doing some decorating, was a large man with a curly mass of dark brown hair shot through with grey sitting untidily on the top of his head, which extended over six feet into the air. He looked more like a lumberjack than a dentist, and had a great booming voice and a Scouse accent as thick as Snape's, belying his solidly middle-class status. He was born into a working-class family, in Vauxhall, and he was a Scouser, through and through.

So was his daughter. Hermione told Harry that when she was a kid she was made fun of at school for being a dirty Scouser by her middle-class schoolmates, so her Mum and Dad were happy to see her go to Hogwarts and make some friends.

Harry supposed the way they talked, their accents seemed impenetrable to other people, but he never had any trouble understanding Hermione, not even the first time he met her.

Funny, that.

Snape got out and got Hermione's trunk, and Dr. Granger greeted him warmly.

Harry leaned into the passenger seat.

"Your Dad doesn't look too upset. You'd think he'd be having kittens."

"He knows about Snape and I. And he's got nothing to say, about it, has he?" Hermione replied.

Dr. Granger had just been getting divorced from his first wife when he met the soon to be Mrs. Dr. Granger. She'd just joined his practise and she was 25 years younger than he is."

"Still, you'd think would be too happy about it. Your Mum was 23 when she met your Dad." Harry reminded her.

"I think its not so bad for Da, cos he was always worried I'd take up with some Southerner. He's glad that I picked on a fellow Liverpool fan. Besides, he knows Snape's Da, so that helped."

"Liverpool fan? Football or Quidditch?"

"Snape follows both. And me Da's got into Quidditch since I've gone to Hogwarts. Come on out."

Dr. Granger was discussing Snape's dental work with him when Harry and Hermione got out of the car.

Snape had a smile like an old pirate, full of gold crowns, with rather pointy incisors and the odd space inbewteen.

"It's the junk, Snape, that's what's done it. All those years on the needle are bloody 'ard on the choppers. Your Mum has the same trouble. Not to worry, though, you come in when you want and I'll put a crown on it for you. And that one next to the molar in the back will have to come out. I'll get you an implant. Harry Potter! What are you doing in the 'Pool? Slumming it with us Northerners?"

"Uh, Professor Snape's my sponsor at WAND, that's like NA and AA, and so he invited me to spend some of me holiday with his family."

"Don't tell me that shite, Harry! I know what goes on, even if Toby wants to keep schtum. I dunno how everybody at Hogwarts hadn't noticed it, still, I suppose you don't see what you ain't lookin' for. Go on in, use the bog, I don't want you pissin' on me lawn. You're a cruel man, Sev, it's not the army, yunno! Glad to hear you got Sober, Harry! Wipe yer feet, that's a good lad! Still, well, I can see where those relatives of yours would drive anybody to drink. Right, Harry? Third door on the right after you get upstairs! Well, Hermione, your Mum will be home soon, you'd best get in the house and unpack. Tell Toby, I said hello, Severus!" Dr. Grainger boomed.

Harry could hear the whole soliloquy as he went into the house, went to the loo and came back out again.

Harry and Snape got back into the car as Dr. Granger ushered his daughter into the house, casually carrying her trunk in one hand like it was made of cloth and filled with feathers.

Despite that fact that John Grainger genuinely seemed to like him, Snape's old lady's father always made him a bit nervous.

"What say we stop by the boozer for a game of darts, a nice fry-up, a few tonic water and limes and some telly, Potter?" Snape asked.

"Sounds good to me." Harry agreed.

***

Snape drove deeper into the city, and Harry watched what looked like some rough parts of town passing by.

When they got to about the roughest, Snape parked the car and got out.

Harry hesitated.

"What, Potter, are you afraid? You, the king of the Horntail's Nest?"

"Nobody there has a gun. I don't know any spells that will stop a bullet."

"You used to go round to places like this in the Esat End."

"Well, they knew me there. 'Ave you got a gun in 'ere? It'd make me feel a lot better."

"I don't want you shootin' the first person who makes fun of your scar. Besides, nobody's going to fuck with you, 'ere. They know me, 'ere. This is our local. C'mon." Snape assured him.

Inside, the place reminded him of Knockturn Alley, and was indeed quite reminiscent of the Horntail's Nest.

"Well, look who's back from his poncy poofter job at the boy's school? Who's this, your bum chum?"

The bloke at the bar who spoke was a mammoth of a man, huge and strong-looking, but immensely fat. Although he was the bikie type, he reminded Harry, in his girth, of Uncle Vernon, and already paranoid, he lost his temper.

"You fucker, I'll make you swallow what's left of your teeth!" Harry promised.

Snape grabbed him by the collar and tossed him onto a stool.

"Put it back in your pants, Potter." Snape suggested.

"I was just foolin', kid. Me an your old man, we grew up together."

"Who says he's me old man?" Harry asked.

A laugh rippled down the bar.

"We know a Snape when we see one." The bartender answered.

He put two ginger beers in front of Harry and Snape.

"You stick to this, kid. I don't want to see you drunk and doing the place up a treat.." He said.

***

A plate of fish and chips and two ginger beers later, Harry had settled right in, and he had the Old Man and the imaginatively named bikie, Big Jim, were playing some darts and generally having a good time.

That was when trouble walked in the door.

Four blokes.

From the way they were dressed, Harry could tell they were toffs, slumming it, and the worst troublemakers in any dive, anywhere were some half-drunk, high off their arses toffs slumming it.

"Oi, see, 'ere, I told you fookin' berks to gerroff out'r me place and not come back!" the bartender reminded them.

"What are you gonna do, call the cops?"

Their high-class toff accents grated on Harry's ears.

Ever since the first day he went off to school in Dudley's old clothes bearing the unwealcome ghosts of Uncle Vernon's much-denied Cockney accent and Aunt Petunia's equally suppressed Scouse one, toffs had been the bane of his existence.

He would not have hated even Malfoy as much, had he not been a fucking toff.

"Easy, Potter."

"C'mon, Snape! I 'ate these Hooray Henry types. Just let me at one of 'em. Just one! They'll never come back 'ere after the GBH I'll do on'em." Harry begged.

"Leave it alone. It's Chrimble, we'll give 'em a nice przzie and let 'em live." Snape answered.

Harry and Snape and Big Jim didn't want to be in the toffs' company, so they adjourned to the pool table in the back.

Sam, the bartender, however, hadn't kept a pub in Kensingston on the edge of the now defunct Spinner's End estate open for nearly forty years without being a crafty sort of fellow.

If anyone could scare these four berks back to Hoylake where they belonged, it was Sev Snape. The man was almost as frightening as both his parents put together. And Sev's boy seemed to be a real chip off the old block.

"Get the fuck away from me bar, you troublemakin' berks! Bugger off in the back somewhere, so's me regulars can't see yer! Don't make me come from be'ind this bar!" Sam threatened.

The Hooray Henries were smart enough not to make Sam come around from behind the bar, so they made their way to the back, where a very fat man, a tall skinny man with an immense hooter, and some four-eyes lad with a funny scar on his head were playing pool.

"What's this? Is the circus in town?" said the ringleader.

His friends laughed, even though his insult was neither funny, nor original.

Harry was thinking he hadn't been in a fight for a couple of months.

A new record for him, but one he hoped he was going to have to break.

"Snaaaaaape…" Harry whined, like a little boy who reeeeealy had to go to the loo, but his Dad wouldn't stop the car.

"Leave it out." Snape insisted.

"Are you carny freaks going to be all over that pool table all night?" the ringleader continued.

They continued to be ignored.

Then the ringleader noticed a cage sitting on a table where some coats were hung over chairs.

There was some kind of fucking bird in it.

An owl.

"What are you freaks, a fucking animal act? Can't you leave the animals in the caravan? Look at the pretty birdie. Say Whoo-Whooo, little birdie."

Hedwig looked and the drunk toff with distaste.

Harry held in a laugh, he could only imagine what she was thinking.

"What's the matter with this fucking bird? I said say "whooo-whooo"!"

The toff took a rather expensive-looking pen out of his pocket and began jabbing Hedwig with the pointy end of it.

She began to flutter around the cage to try and escape him, but he stuck half his hand in, and jabbed at the caged owl, laughing at her cries of distress.

Which sounded to him like a bird squawking, but which came through to Harry as "Help! Help, he's hurting me! Master Harry! Help!"

That was the end of it.

Swearing horribly, Harry stalked over to the table, spun the ringleader around, and smashed one fist into the toff's solar plexus, and the other into his Adam's apple.

This, of course, caused the fellow to drop to the ground in a quivering heap.

Snape and Big Jim looked on, bemused, until it became apparent the other three weren't going to fight fair when one of them smacked Harry across his back with a pool cue.

The pool cue snapped in half, Harry's glasses skittered across the room, and he stumbled forward, dazed, giving the other two the opportunity to try to grab hold of Harry so the ringleader, who was trying to get up, could hit him.

Harry was about to grab hold of the cricket set closet to his left hand and squeeze until he was released, but that was when Snape stepped in.

With his usual detached air, and as if he was lifting a sack of dehydrated belladonna berries to load into his Potions store, Snape seized the ringleader by his neck and his nuts, squeezing both with all the strength in his large, powerful hands and casually hoisted him over his head.

The poor fellow began to scream, shrilly.

"Shut you gob, or I'll break your neck." Snape reminded him.

"Now, you lot let that lad go, or it won't go too well for your mate, here." He threatened, shaking the ringleader a bit for effect.

The two toffs let Harry go, and ran for the door.

"You'd better get some new mates, arsehole." Snape told the ringleader, before casually tossing him over the pool table.

The poor unfortunate wretch was airborne for a few seconds before he fell into the rack of cue sticks with a crash.

The toff who was still holding the broken cue stick approached Snape swinging it wildly.

Snape grabbed the stick from his hand, causally broke it in two, and tossed the pieces over his shoulder.

He shook his head, disapprovingly, smiled, and then let the remaining toff have a right to the jaw.

He spun around into Harry, and instead of falling down or trying to escape like a smart Hooray Henry, he reached for one of the Coke bottles and cracked Harry in the head with it.

Harry shook his head a little, and he was actually laughing as he landed a well aimed punch to the toff's face that blacked his eye and shattered his cheekbone.

Harry was still laughing at him as the young man staggered past the pool table, and collapsed beside his fallen comrade.

"Shall I take care of this for you, Sam?" Big Jim calledd.

"That'd be nice, Jim." Sam replied.

Big Jim went up to the bar and got a pitcher of water, which he tossed onto the two men. They began to moan, which let him know that they were still alive.

Then he grabbed the legs of one under one massive ram and the legs of the other under his other ram and dragged them outside.

"Don't come back! Ever!" Sam yelled as Big Jim closed the door.

Sam poured him a drink and he decided to nurse his beer at the bar for awhile.

"I'll see you lot when I'm drunk enough to lose more money to yer!' he called to Harry and Snape in the back.

"Righto! Now, Potter, I believe it was your shot."

"Malfoy was right! You destroyed those arse'oles! I didn't ardly have to do anything. I suppose you learned how to fight the same way I did."

"I learned how to fight like that long before Knockturn Alley. I learned in my living room when my father was drunk and my mother and I wanted to watch telly in peace. And vice versa. Liverpool's a tough town, Potter. Besides, when I was a skinny little boy, everyone was always beating the fuck out of me. As soon as I became a man, all that stopped. Immediately."

Harry sort of knew what he meant. The summer before fourth year he had a sunken chest and spindly arms and a squeaky voice and had a hard time lifting his trunk. By the summer after fifth year there was hair growing on his chest, he had to get new robes because his shoulders were splitting his old ones and they were too short for him, and he found his limbs had gotten wiry rather than spindly and acquired the strength so that he could carry his trunk in one hand and Ginny's in the other with ease.

He lined up his shot.

"I wish Ginny had been here. She would have had a lot of fun with that lot. She likes it when they don't fight fair. It makes her feel she has a right to annihilate them. Nine in the corner pocket." He announced, and made the shot.

Pain shot through his hand.

Fucking bastard with the pool cue, he had a hard head.

"Owww! Fuck, I broke me knuckle, again."

Snape put his hand over Harry's.

"_Episkey_!" he said, quietly, and Harry's hand was fine.

"Wait! You can do wandless magic! Then you could have…"

"Hexed those yobboes into the next dimension? Yes. But it would have called attention to us and we are travelling in secret as Muggles. Besides, beating the shit out of them was much more fun."

"Yeah. It was." Harry had to agree.

One of the barmaids came over with two glasses of Coke and put them on the end of the pool table.

She also had a mop and bucket with her, to clean the mess of blood, water, beer and Coke off of the floor.

"I can always tell when there's a Snape in the pub. Bodies flying everywhere and blood all over the floor. Is this your boy, Sev?" she asked.

"My student, Rory."

The barmaid looked at both of them.

"Uh-huh. Whatever you say. Tell Tobias I said 'ello."

"Let me do that. We made this mess. Potter, see to those pool cues."

"You're good as gold, Sev. The Cokes are on me." Rory replied, appreciatively.

As Harry fixed the pool cues and Snape mopped intently, Harry watched the barmaid's miniskirt walk away.

"Do you know her?" he asked.

"She's your grandfather's mistress. I wouldn't if I were you."

"But what about your mother?"

"Sometimes she'll take a fancy to this one or that one who works in her shop."

Harry shook his head.

_Well it certainly explains a lot about me_. He thought.

***

After a few more games of pool, they got back in the car and drove a little ways in the direction they'd come from, down a street full of shops.

"There's Prince's Potions, the family shop. See that light in the basement window? That's your great-grandfather and an army of house elves, working late to get all the orders filled for Chrimble."

Snape stopped the car.

"I'd better go in and get him, or he'll not come 'ome till tomorrow."

Harry waited awhile, craning his neck, anxiously.

There was a portrait of Severus Prince hanging in the Great Hall at Hogwarts, with the pictures of all the other past teachers. In the picture, he was wearing a violet Alchemist's coat over purple robes, and wearing a violet top hat perched on top of a pair of satyr's horns. His hair was extremely long, extremely coarse, and extremely curly, and he had a merry, sly, goatish smile on his ruggedly good-looking face.

He was barefoot, carried a walking stick with a serpent's head, and had one cloven hoof.

Snape came up out of the building, followed by the former Potions Master. He had on the violet hat and coat, and carried the walking stick, but he had green robes on, underneath.

And, even in the cold, he wore no shoes.

Severus the younger got into the front, and Severus the elder got in the back with Harry.

"Hullo, Harry. I'm your great-grandfather." He said, pleasantly enough, shaking Harry's hand.

"Yes sir, I know."

"Well, don't call me sir, lad! I am not me hoity-toity portrait in the great hall. Things are not always as they seem. Your father, for example. What do you see on either side of his head?"

"Nothing."

Severus Prince winked.

"Precisely."

"Blimey, Snape, 'ave you got _horns_? Ginny told me that Malfoy's dad said he saw you with horns, but he was never sure if they were a glamour, or if you not having them is." Harry squawked.

"Oh look. We're home." Snape announced, and quickly got out of the car.

"Does he have horns? Am I going to grow horns?" Harry asked his great–grandfather, excitedly.

He began feeling around the side of his head.

Harry quite fancied himself as a great lusty satyr with majestic horns and a hairy chest, although he could do without the hooves.

"I don't know. Let's go in the house." Severus Prince replied.

There was a goatish twinkle in his merry greenish-yellowish eyes.

Snape had pulled the car up in front of an old Victorian house marked 310. It was painted royal blue and had ivy growing all over it, but it looked well kept-up.

There was an ancient but mint condition Mini parked in the driveway, and an old Triumph Bonneville as well.

"Come on, Potter." Snape called from the porch.

Harry was nervous as they walked towards the door, but he tried not to show it.

Snape was trying to work through the locks and the wards when the door opened enough to admit the barrel of a 12-gauge shotgun.

"Da, I've told you, that's not going to help."

"Toby, will you leave it out, for fuck's sake! One day you'll mistake me for a burglar and shoot me." Severus Sr. commented.

"Not you, Pop. I can always hear your hoof on the porch. And don't you tell me what's nae going top help, Sev! I dinna give a fuck who or what ye are, blown 'in half wi' a shotgun is blown in half wi' a shotgun! One o' those sons of bitches wi' that thing on his arm like you got tried to come ''in 'ere an before yer Mum could get her wand out, he were in pieces all over the fuckin porch! Blam!"

Harry and Snape walked into the house and Snape shut the door.

"When was this, Dad?"

"Summertime."

"Well now we know what happened to Macnair's protégé. Dad, this is Harry Potter."

"I know who he is! I got his picture all over me house! My grandson the War Hero! Just like my son the War Hero! Tobias Snape, lad. I'm yer grandfather!"

Harry shook his grandfather's hand and Tobias squeezed the hell out of it, then crushed him in a big bear hug.

Tobias Snape was, much as his son had described him, a big ginger Scotsman starting to go grey, but built like a brick wall. Although it was freezing out, all he had on was a vest and a kilt. He had a barrel chest and great massive arms bulging out of his white undershirt, and huge broad shoulders and legs like tree trunks.

He was such a massive figure that Harry hardly noticed he was only five foot seven.

"And you already know our Ellie." Tobias said.

Harry then heard a jingling sound like the one those gypsy coin and bell belts made, a very familiar sound, indeed.

That pervious summer, when he was at the Burrow, recovering from bottoming out and the nasty wreck in which he had totalled Uncle Vernon's car, that was the sound that woke him up every morning, and put him to bed every night.

It was the sound of the mysterious Master Magus sent by the Ministry to look after him. When he awoke from some horrible feverish dream to the sound of the jingling belt and the clip- clop of her black Granny boots, he'd immediately felt peaceful and safe.

She'd been a tall, thin, willowy woman with long black hair who seemed to glide rather than walk. She had, Harry recalled, an accent sort of like Hermione's, but her voice was as melodious and enthralling as she was intensely, almost disturbingly, beautiful. She was both wise and kind in her salty, acid-tongued way.

She never judged Harry harshly, since she had bottomed out, she told Harry, far lower than he had, and her advice had always been good. And Mrs. E's potions and care nothing were nothing short of miraculous

Harry had been embarrassed to think it, then, but the witch who called herself Mrs. E acted like the mother he never had.

Sure enough, the tell-tale jangles and clip-clops resulted in Mrs. E coming down the stairs.

"It's you! Mrs. E!" Harry exclaimed, rather stupidly, he thought.

"I wanted to tell you the truth, Harry. About all of us." Ellie told him.

"I know. But Dumbledore wouldn't let you." Harry finished.

He was sick of that litany, by now.

"What? Certainly fucking not! Albus is your father's dad-by-bond, not mine! I had every intention of telling you the whole truth! I always thought you should have been told from the time you came to Hogwarts. If you had your family, if you knew your Dad was your Dad, you never would have come to the state you was in, would you? I kept me mouth shut because I thought you weren't well enough to handle the shock. Finding out you're a member of this family is quite a shock."

"Er, at this point, I'm glad to have a family." Harry truthfully told his grandmother.

"That's what you say now. I'll ask you a at the end of your vacation. How've you been, Sev? How's our Hermione?"

"Fine."

"Fine? Is that all? Of course it is. That's the Snape way, innit it? I'm lucky you and Toby don't just point and grunt, I suppose. TREACHER! THE LUGGAGE,THANK YOU!"

Treacher came in with their trunks.

"We've made a room up for you, Harry. If you want, Treacher can move you out of that rat bastard Vernon Durseley's hovel and you can move right in here." Eileen told him.

"Yes. Thanks. Brilliant." Harry burbled.

He was beside himself with joy.

Finally rid of the Dursleys.

Forever.

"Snape, this is the best fuckin' Christmas, ever!" Harry enthused to his father.

"Wait until the vacation's over and tell me that again." Snape replied.

Meanwhile, Tobias was putting his coat on.

"Don't take yer coat off lad. We've got to go out and get a fucking tree. Did you bring that Invisibility thingy, Harry?" he asked.

"Yes. It's in me pocket."

"Good. Then this year the rozzers definitely won't catch me choppin' it down."

***

When Harry and Tobias returned with the tree, there was smoke coming out of an opened back window.

"The house is on fire!" Harry yelled.

"No it ain't. Like as not Ellie were tryin' to cook, again. Her Mum gave up on it a long time ago, but yer grandma, she don't never give up on nothin'."

"Oh. That's what me friend Ron's brother says. About veelas and cooking. He's married to a French bird who's part veela, and she can't cook, either."

"Well a man don't marry a woman who's any part veela for her cookin'. I'm the only one what can cook. I was a ship's cook with the merchant marine, for awhile. Nothin' fancy, but, well I'd better get that lot the fuck out'r me kitchen."

Tobias wrenched the door open, plonked the tree down right in the doorway of the parlour and waded over it.

"What the fuck are yuh doin' in me kitchen, woman! Gerroff that fookin' stove!" he began to yell.

"If you stole that fookin' tree, if the rozzers come to this house one more bloody time, you bandy-legged bastard, I'll hex you into next year!" Eileen yelled back.

Tobias pushed the kitchen door open and smoke filled the parlour.

"You're gonna wot? I'd like to fookin' see you try it…" he announced.

Calmly, the two Severuses retrieved the Christmas tree and put it up in the holder.

The kitchen door opened again, and a petite but buxom blonde witch wearing red robes emerged from the smoky mass.

She looked like she was about 35, and a bit like Luna Lovegood, if Luna was the absolute and undying goddess of love.

Harry suddenly realised that he had been to bed with Luna quite a few times, the last not too long ago, and he all the sudden didn't feel very well.

"What's the matter, Harry?" Aphrodite asked him.

"How closely am I related to Luna Lovegood?" he replied, looking quite unwell.

Aphrodite laughed, a magical sort of little bells ringing in a sunny meadow sort of sound that put Harry at ease for no real reason.

"Only by marriage, Harry. And distantly." She replied.

"Good." Harry said.

It meant he had done nothing disgusting and he didn't have to bit Loony Luna farewell.

"Let's help out with the tree." His great-grandmother suggested.

"But what about in the kitchen?"

"Don't go in there, Potter. Not unless you want to be traumatised for life." Snape warned.

He turned up the telly and the four of them began to trim the tree.

Tobias emerged first, smoking.

Aphrodite immediately went for the stairs.

"Severus, why don't you help me finish moving that bookcase. Call us when dinner arrives, will you, Harry?" she said.

"Sure." Harry replied as his great-grandparents beat a hasty retreat.

"We'll be 'avin Chinese take away, tonight." Tobias said, and reached for the ornament box.

"Not unless you've washed your hands, Da!" Snape bawled.

"Fine. I'll go wash me hands." Tobias agreed.

"He always fucks up the goddamn tree. Every fucking year he fucks up the goddamn tree for thirty-fucking-eight years I burnt the fucker dwon he fucked it up so badly when I was ten. Not this year. Oh no." Snape was muttering to humself, almost maniacally.

So that was why they'd taken it on their toes.

Quietly, Harry put the ornament he had in his hand back in the box, and began to slowly back away from the tree.

Tobias came out of the loo.

"Nae, lad, that's all wrong! All wrong! Every year, you fuck up the goddamn tree! Gi'me that box!"

"What the fuck are you about, Da? Don't fucking take all of those off! I just put them on!" Snape yelled.

Ellie came out of the kitchen, sat down in front of the telly and lit up a fag.

Harry decided it would be best to join her.

"Leave it out, Toby. C'mon, Sev, let's watch telly. Let your father do the tree." She suggested.

"Don't take one more thing off that I put on, Da! I'll burn it up, again! Don't think I bleedin' well won't!" Snape warned.

"Go sit with your mother and Harry. Let me do this." Tobias said.

Snape came and sat down, muttering as he lit up a cigarette.

"Every year he fucks up the display worse than the year before. And then we have to fix it."

"Let him go. That's what magic is for." Eileen explained.

Snape turned around.

"Goddamnit, Da, if you plug that many fucking plugs into the wall…" he exclaimed, leaping to his feet.

Suddenly, everything went black.

"_LUMOS_! Mum! Da! We're going out to eat! Get your coat, Harry." Ellie announced

She didn't have to tell him, twice.

They all piled into the Mini, and Harry looked out the rear window as Ellie pulled out of the driveway.

Snape was out in the front lawn, pointing at the half of the outside lights that were malfunctioning, and shouting, and Tobias was in the doorway, waving around some extension cords and shouting.

"Don't look back. You'll turn into a pillar of salt." Aphrodite quipped.

"Will they be awright?" Harry asked.

"Sure. We'll bring them some take away. Later." Ellie replied.


	3. All in the Families

**Chapter Three: All in the Families**

They might have been eccentric, very eccentric, but Harry was feeling a lot more at home with the Snape-Prince family than he ever had at the Dursleys.

His newly-discovered family were in earnest when they suggested he move his things from the Dursleys to their house.

Harry was sound asleep in his bed on a morning a few days before Christmas Eve when his grandmother came in and woke him up.

"C'mon Harry, lad. Up and at 'em. We're going to move your kit from Petunia's house, today."

Harry was awake, immediately.

"Today!" he cried.

"What's wrong with today? Toby! Let's go! Get your kit on, Harry, I told Petunia we'd be there at ten."

It all happened so fast that Harry hardly realised he was going back to Number 14 Privet Drive until he and his grandparents emerged from Mrs. Figg's fireplace.

Harry hadn't exactly left the Dursley residence under the best of circumstances. In fact, he'd capped a month and a half of drunkenness, open use of intravenous drugs, stealing from and terrorising his aunt and uncle, coming home at all hours in the company of the worst kind of bints imaginable, people he couldn't imagine he'd ever even think of sticking his cock in with beating the fuck out of Uncle Vernon and speeding off in his car whilst he left his Uncle bleeding on the kitchen floor.

Later on that day, he totalled the car, destroyed his leg, and slunk off to die at the Horntail's Nest, until the Old Men sent Ginny and Ron and Hermione to rescue him.

"Mrs E., Pop, I can't fuckin' do this." Harry announced.

"Oh yes ye can, lad. And ye will." Tobias replied.

"You made this mess, Harry. Now you have to face the consequences. That's part of recovery." Eileen told him.

Harry put his key in the lock, and was surprised to find that Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia hadn't changed the locks.

Everything was the way he remembered it.

"Is that you, Harry? We're in the parlour."

Harry couldn't believe it. After everything he'd done, he and the Snapes were being invited to tea.

"Happy Christmas, Petunia. Did you get our card?" Eileen asked.

"It's right there, on the mantle."

"How's business, Toby?"

"No end of traffic this time of year, Vernon. So, are they lettin' Artie out this year?"

"Daddy's lawyer says he has a very good chance of being paroled this time. We're keeping our fingers crossed." Petunia replied

Harry just stood there, with his mouth hanging open, as his grandparents settled in with his Aunt and Uncle for tea and biscuits.

"Happy Christmas, Harry! You look great. I'm glad to see you got your shit together." Dudley said.

"Thanks, Dudley. You too. Look at this. This is too fucking weird." Harry replied.

"Are you boys going to come and have some tea?" Aunt Petunia asked.

Harry and Dudley sat together on the loveseat.

"I see you've made a full recovery, Harry. And your father tells us you've brought up your grades and stuck to the terms of your probation. I'm glad to see that some of the upbringing we gave you has stuck." Uncle Vernon told him.

"I guess you knew all along."

"Certainly, we did. I always thought that you should have been with your father, and his family, but…well you did hear that Grandpa might be getting paroled, didn't you?" Aunt Petunia asked.

"Fingers crossed." Harry said.

The small talk swirled around him until he couldn't stand it anymore.

"Erm, I really want to apologise for the way I acted last summer. I know we've never really gotten on, with you thinking I was going to grow up to be a wild man like me Old Man if you didn't keep me on a short leash…and then I did. Still, I had no right to steal from you, and total the car, and, I'm really sorry I hit you, Uncle Vernon. Maybe now that the truth's out and I'm going to live with the Snapes, and maybe if Grandpa gets paroled…we can start over again. Like Snape says, your family is your family. They're all you've really got." Harry blurted out.

"You're a patient man, Vernon. I would 'ave wiped the floor wi' the rascal, nephew or no nephew. Harry, your Uncle Vernon used to work for your Grandfather Evans. He came to Liverpool after he got run out of the London rackets for bein' too violent. You're lucky Vern's become a patient man." Tobias marvelled.

"You were muscle for the mob?" Harry asked.

"Yeah. I've seen his press clippings. Pretty cool." Dudley enthused.

"That's enough, Dudley. I'm a changed man, now, Harry. I gave up on violence when they sent your grandfather to prison and your aunt and I got married. I could take a few punches from a boy without breaking the promises I made to your Petunia." Uncle Vernon admitted.

Harry turned a whiter shade of pale.

"Don't give it a second thought, Harry. Now, Dudley and I have packed your things into boxes. We weren't sure how you people do your moving, but everything's ready when you are. And your father's right. No matter what has happened between us, we're still your family. The bed will still be there, and the room, and provided you phone ahead, you're welcome to come and visit." Uncle Vernon pronounced.

"Thanks." Harry said.

He was at a loss for what else to say.

Harry was very quiet as he helped carry the six boxes that contained all of his stuff that wasn't at Hogwarts downstairs and then to Mrs. Figg's, where Eileen sent it on to Liverpool using the Floo Network.

He and his grandparents stayed on for lunch, and then Harry said goodbye to the Dursleys and flooed back after his things.

Eileen went back to the shop, there were still orders to fill for Christmas, and so Tobias helped him unpack in his new room.

He was still quiet as they unpacked his boxes

"I guess they weren't so bad, after all. I mean, they did take me in, and I suppose they thought that if they were strict with me I wouldn't get into trouble." Harry finally said.

"Vernon and Petunia were a lot better parents to you than Ellie and I were to your father. You had a nice house, clean clothes, three meals a day, and you went to school. You never went hungry because your mother spent all the food money on dope and your father was off on a binge. Nobody ever beat you just because you was there and they was out of it. You never had to worry about your aunt and uncle murdering you, or each other in a fit of drunken rage. And your Dad, he forgave us, and we redeemed ourselves. Not to mention that our Sev, he became the right hand man for the villain who ruined his mother's life, he sold drugs to children and beat the fuck out of the poor souls who couldn't pay him. He tried to burn our house down two more times when he was in his teens, he done so much GBH on me one Chrimble, I missed two days of work. And we forgave him, and he redeemed himself. I'm sure you'll patch things up wif our Lily's people. There's far less on both sides to forgive." Tobias replied.

It was certainly something to think about.

"Dinna look so glum, lad. Ye can rearrange yer things later. Let's go to the local an' play some pool. Have a few drinks." Tobias suggested.

Harry was able to relax and get out of his contemplative mood as he narrated to his grandfather about the fight that he and Snape had on the day of their arrival.

"Fuck! And I missed it! I ain't been in a good fight for at least a month, now. Oh well. In this place, there'll be more where that came from. Especially if me and your Da come down here by ourselves." Tobias protested.

"Where is the Old Man, today?"

"He went to visit our Hermione. He said summat about unfinished business. Monkey business, if I know our Sev." Tobias chuckled.

"You know how I found out they were together?" Harry asked.

"Tell me, Harry, lad."

"Well I had snuck into his office to steal some potion ingredients. With my Invisibility Cloak. And before I could get out, him and Hermione came in and locked the door. It was all business, mind you. They talked about the war, and about glasses and they called each other Granger and Snape. All business until he sat her down on the desk and proceeded to give it to her, that is." Harry confided.

Tobias Snape roared with laughter until tears came out of his eyes.

"Aye, ye poor lad! T'wasn't bad enough seein' yer teacher shaggin' yer best friend, but then ye find out he's your old Dad!" he howled.

"I know! I put my fingers in me ears and turned me face to the wall, but I could still hear her screaming Snape! Snape! Snape!" Harry laughed.

"Ah well, ye can say what ye want about a Snape, but there ain't been one born yet who'll leave a woman unhappy." Tobias said, winking.

"They come for the Boy Who Lived, but they come back for another ride on the ol' Firebolt." Harry replied.

"I'll drink to that, Harry, m'lad!"

They clinked glasses and Tobias called to his girlfriend for another round.

***

His parents may have decided to be civil to that fat fuck oaf Vernon Dursley and whiny, rat-faced, plastic Scouser Petunia Evans, but Snape was having no part of that.

He had the feeling that Hermione was still angry with him over the Yule Ball affair, so he took the bus to Woolton for a visit with her when he parents were at work.

She took her time answering the door, and when she did, the reception was a bit cool.

"What's this, a booty call? I may and I may not, Snape. I'm still pissed at you about the other night, you great greasy git, you." Hermione told him.

"A what kind of call?" Snape asked.

"It's when you ring someone up or go and see them just so you can get your end off."

"Oh. Well, Granger, I'd be lying if I said I hadn't considered it, but I came here to explain meself."

"First."

"Yes, first. Don't get on your high horse; it's not as if you don't fancy a blow through." Snape reminded her.

"Just don't take all day. I've got work to do. With all this war business going on, I've got to make sure I get some time studying in. NEWTs as usual, this year, if I'm alive to take them."

They went upstairs to Hermione's bedroom, and before Snape could begin explaining himself, he took careful notice of the parchments lying on her desk.

He looked them over twice and a smile spread across his lips.

Hermione wasn't just the most brilliant witch in her year; she was most likely the most brilliant witch he had ever taught.

"What is it you're working on, Granger?"

Hermione was relieved. She'd much rather discuss something important rather than listen to Snape try to muster up some lame excuse for being a right cunt so he could get her to take her knickers down when she was planning to do so, anyway.

"I've almost got it figured out, Snape. Pull up a chair."

Hermione sat down at her desk, and Snape pulled up a beanbag and sat beside her.

"It's a complete defence to _expelliarmus_. I'd rather not get some elaborate network of goblin tattoos that don't always work when I can use me own powers. And if these sources are right, it may also work for _stupefy_, and possibly _reducto_, and some other basic spells like that. Now, if you combine this Elvish spell with this old English spell, _rovertor_, I think… well no, maybe I'd better think it out again. Something to do with telepathy, but I think the Elvish spell takes care of that…I'm not sure…a little more research…maybe I'll get Ron to be me guinea pig for a few more tests…"

Snape looked at the books she was reading.

Not only were they off limits to students, they were ancient grimories, written at a level and in languages which even some of Hermione's fellow Third Degree Magi who were twenty or thirty years older than she would be unable to understand.

But not only could Hermione understand, she understood well enough to try and synthesise the existing information into a new defence.

Snape felt a swelling of pride, which was not the swelling he'd come looking for, but was in some ways more satisfactory.

"Very interesting. Let me see what you've worked out so far, Granger." Snape replied, putting on his glasses.

He reviewed Hermione's notes, hastily scrawled in a mixture of Elvish and old English.

"Granger, you are a genius! D'you know what you've done? You've come up with Cagliostro's defence, completely independently, using the same methodology he did. Granted you haven't got it figured out precisely, but you've grasped the building blocks, and arranged them in the right place. " Snape marvelled.

"That can't be. I've read all of Count Cagliostro's works and there was nothing like this in them."

"All that are available to you, you mean. Cagliostro's Defence only appears in grimoires for witches and wizards of the second and third degree in Magick of the Arts, and you're only an initiate in that Discipline. After seeing this work, though, I'm going to propose that you be jumped to Second Degree. It's theoretically simple, but very difficult in practise." Snape explained.

"How?" Hermione asked.

"I'll show you."

Snape stood up and took out his wand.

"Try to disarm me."

Hermione didn't bother to draw her wand.

"Use your wand." Snape instructed.

"_Expelliarmus_!"

Not only did Snape seem to do nothing but scratch his head, she ended up disarmed and her spell failed to work, in a blast of light and sound.

"How did you do that? Wait, let me get me quill." Hermione said.

"There are two ways. First, you have to know about the old English spell, _rovertor_. _Rovertor_ reverses the spell someone is casting on you back on them. It's a university level spell. Hogwarts stopped teaching it in the 17th century because most students don't have the power or skill to cast the spell directly and forcefully enough to make it work, especially with a wand. It works best when you use your finger and point. Now, the extra-hard bit. You also have to be able to cast the spell telepathically. Not may wizards can do telepathic wandless magic. Albus Dumbledore can. So can Tom Riddle, for that matter. Of course Count Cagliostro could, but he wanted to find a way so that most advanced witches and wizards, who couldn't use telepathy would be able to use this important defence. The whole spell is done with wandless magic. First, you use wandless magic to cast _lumos audtioria_ to make the light and the crashing sound, which covers up the rest of what you're doing. Then you put your finger to your head to cast the Elvish spell, _E'nthella_, which temporarily allows you to perform telepathic wandless magic. The most important part is that you point from your forehead to your target in one motion of your hand, and think "_rovertor_" almost at the same time as you say "_E'nthella"_. Which, by the way gives most wizards a nosebleed and a crippling headache. But it works for pretty much any simple spell, so it's a very useful defence." Snape explained

"I can already do r_overtor_. I've been doing it for years; I discovered it in an old copy of _Hogwarts, A History_ when I was in third year. That's my secret weapon. I never thought that it would be more pre_cise _using hand magic, but that makes sense. Let me try the Elvish spell. I'll use me wand. _E'nthella_!"

Hermione's pen levitated off of her desk and onto her bed.

Snape noted her nose was not bleeding.

"Does your head hurt?" he asked.

"A little. I'll have to practise, but I think I can do it." Hermione assured him.

"I'm sure you can, Granger."

"Now what was it you wanted to tell me, Snape?"

"What? Oh, that. Nothing."

He started getting her notes together.

"I'm going to owl Albus and tell him I think you should be jumped to Second Degree. I'll send him these notes as proof. When I was your age, I was Third Degree in Alchemy, Second Degree in Sex Magick and First Degree in Magick of the Arts, so you're ahead of me. We'll have the ceremony right after Chrimble so you can get your tattoo before the Last Battle. I'll 'ave to go back 'ome, there's no owlery, ere…"

"Sev? Oh, Sev?"

Snape was about to turn to Hermione and snap at her for bothering him while he was thinking, but while he was arranging her papers, she had gotten rather quickly naked, and arranged herself into bed, on to of the covers.

"You can fuck about with those papers, later. Time for you to fuck about with me." Hermione announced.

With a theatrical flourish, Snape cast "_divesto_" and "_revelus_", the latter of which either removed or created a glamour.

He lit the candles on her windowsill and desk and night table with a snap of his fingers as a rather fine pair of full satyr's horns seemingly grew out of his head.

"Ooooo, Sev, you've got the horns on. It must be Chrimble." Hermione giggled.

"It's Chrimble early for you, Hermione." Snape growled, as Hermione gathered him into the bed with open arms.

***

The candles had been put out and the whole day was spent when Hermione, lazing in the tangled sheets like a cat in a sunbeam, slowly awoke when she heard noises downstairs.

Oh, Mum and Da are home, she thought, sleepily, absently stroking Sev's hair as he continued to doze beside her.

Then she realised what she was thinking.

"Oh fuck! Snape! Snape! Get your kit on and get the fuck out of 'ere, double geschvinn! My parents are home from work!' she exclaimed.

Snape was out of bed like a shot, and got hastily dressed.

"I can't believe I'm nearly forty fucking years old and I'm still getting dressed in a hurry because somebody's parents are home!" he grumbled.

"Then you should start fucking somebody your own age."

"I was. Then I met you, you little minx. I'll get those papers when I come back on Christmas Eve."

"Snape, you'll be back before that, won't you?" Hermione asked.

"It's only three days away, Granger."

"Yes, but I have to practise this spell. And me parents will be away every day. All day." Hermione reminded him.

"Then I'll see you again, tomorrow. Don't wear anything complicated."

They heard John Granger's footsteps on the stairs, so Snape hurriedly apparated back to his own house.

Dr. Granger knocked.

"Are you in there, Hermione?"

He opened the door a crack, just enough to see that Severus Snape wasn't in there with her.

"Dad! I'm just getting ready to take a shower! Close the door!" Hermione cried.

"Oh. Sorry. And watch those candles. You'll burn the house down." He said.

Hermione waited for him to go back downstairs, put her bathrobe on, opened her window, scourgified the room, sprayed Lysol everywhere, and hurried off to take a shower.

Her heart was pounding in her chest. That was the closest she had ever come in her life to getting in trouble with her parents.

Crookshanks jumped down from his perch atop the towels on the towel rack and curled around Hermione's legs as she started the water in the bath-tub.

"You know what, Crook? That was actually rather fun. But I wouldn't want to come that close to trouble again." She told the cat.

***

The next day, Snape hastened back to Hermione's house to help her practise Cagliostro's Defence, among other things, and since Harry was looking idle, his grandmother took him to Prince's Potions with her.

It was an ingenious place. There was one entrance for Muggles who wanted their cards read and so on, or fancied themselves witches to buy charms and potions and crystals, and a secret entrance available only to witches and wizards that was a proper supply house for just about everything. Under the shop, in a concrete bunker was the Prince's Potions factory, where the potions were synthesised and packaged, and from which they were shipped all over the Wizarding World.

On both sides Eileen's own special potions were on sale. She stocked everything from potions to cure coughs and colds to love potions to powerful protective charms.

She put Harry on the counter for most of the day, but as they grew closer to closing time, she gave him a tour of the lab, factory and processing and distribution centre.

"The Princes have always been Masters at the art of potion-making, Harry. I think the only happy times Severus had with me in his childhood were when we were in me lab, together. He used to watch me work, and he was very young when he started to help me. I still have a little of the first potion he ever invented, himself. Right here in this vial. He made it when he was seven. It…it cures hangovers."

"He used to make that for me, so I'd be able to get something out of my classes." Harry commented.

He thought she was about to cry, so he hastily told her it wasn't her fault.

"But it is my fault, Harry. And Tobias's. If we had been better parents, Severus wouldn't have suffered the way he did when he was a child. He may never have gone over to the Dark Lord. Lily might still be alive, and James and all of us might be able to be a family."

Then, just as her son was able to, Eileen composed herself rapidly.

"Then again, who know? Booze notwithstanding, when a nymphomaniac marries a borderline psychopath, what kind of parents can they be? I've always been shocked but proud that Severus grew up to be a better person than either of us ever were. And he couldn't have picked a better witch than Lily Evans to have as his friend. Or as your mother. You were not a mistake, Harry, or an accident. I always told Severus that about himself. Despite what his father and I were like, he was always wanted, and always loved. And your parents loved each other and they both loved you. All three of them. Do you understand?"

Harry just nodded.

He understood perfectly.

"Mrs. E, you don't seem crazy at all. You're like Sna- Severus I mean. Calm, reasonable and level-headed. To a point, that is."

"As long as I stay sober, I stay sane. Which is why I'm staying sober."

"Me too."

They went back into Eileen's personal laboratory, where Harry picked up a red bottle with no label, sitting by a flask with a green pearlescent potion in it.

"What does this potion do?"

"This is a new one. It's called Animagic Potion. We're just finishing up the testing and I'll be rushing the prototypes to Hogwarts for the Last Battle. You lot might need it. If you swallow three drops of it, it gives you the power to change into an animal as if you were an animagus. If you dip your wand in it three times, it extends the strength and power of you Patronus. And if you throw three drops of it at your enemy, then your animals will come in droves to you rescue. It's a secret formula of my own. I don't intend of passing its derivation on to anyone but your father, and only the when he gets my recipe book after I've died."

"What if an animagus drinks three drops of it?"

"It would make their magic so powerful they would be invincible. Perhaps even to the Death Curse itself, although I wouldn't be the one to try out that theory. It still needs a few more tests."

Harry was thinking about taking the vial, but having heard the phrase "a few more tests" from Snape and then seeing some bad things happen to some innocent nifflers, he put the vial back.

***

The night before Christmas Eve, Harry was watching a re-run of _Are You Being Served_ with Tobias, and they were putting away an extra large pizza as a snack when Eileen came into the room with a flask that was giving off stinky green smoke.

She and Snape were in the basement, in their home lab.

"Drink this, Toby." She told her husband.

Absently, Tobias took the flask, and drank from it.

Snape came running up the stairs.

"Dad! Are you off your fucking nut? Why do you do that!"

"Be quiet, Severus. Well, Toby?"

"What's it supposed ter do?"

"Pick up the remote."

Tobias picked up the remote.

Eileen took out her wand.

"_Expelliarimus_!" she cried.

The remote shook, and before their eyes vaporised into its component ions.

"Not done yet. Bugger."

She went back down to her lab, with Snape at her heels, chastising her.

"Leave your mother alone, Sev!" Tobias shouted.

He pulled another remote out from under the couch.

"Your old man, he worries too much. I been tryin' out Ellie's potions since 1957. Worst thing ever happened ter me I changed into a dog. Stayed that way for a week. But, our Sev always wanted a pet, so iverthin' worked out for tha best." He said, and reached for another slice of pizza.

"You're a better man than I am, Pop. I wouldn't be a guinea pig for a Prince Potion for all the money in the world. Not since all the hair fell off me balls after I tested a Weasley's Wizard Wheezes potion. That was enough for me." Harry replied.

"Was that what it was supposed to do?" Tobias asked.

"Yeah. It was nice of Fred and George not to warn me."

Tobias laughed.

"I ought to get me some of that. Tis a good joke."

They turned up the telly to drown out the shouting from downstairs, and decided to save some of the pizza for Severus Jr.

***

As Christmas Eve dawned, Harry wasn't sure where he was when he woke up in the morning; but that was nothing new for him.

He looked around the room and saw a great quantity of his things, that, and the absence of a feeling of terror and doom reassured him.

He got out of bed, put on his glasses and stumbled out into a hallway.

It looked vaguely familiar, and as he was able to locate both the loo and the stairs, Harry felt confident that very soon he would remember where he was.

At the bottom of the stairs was an extremely lived-in parlour, at the centre of which was a telly, and in front of said telly, sitting on an overstuffed and ancient but extremely comfortable atrocious plaid couch was his father, smoking, dressed in his tattoos, a sneer and his y-fronts, eyes half-closed.

Beside him, also smoking, and also dressed in less elaborate and extensive tattoos and an unpleasant look, with his eyes half closed was a fellow who resembled his father quite strongly.

Sitting in front of each of them was a large mug of coffee.

There was one mug to spare.

Harry sat down in front of it, grabbed a fag from the packet on the table, got the matches sitting by the ashtray, had a sip of coffee, and lit up.

"Where are we?" he asked Snape.

"I'm not sure. Da, where are we?"

"Fuck me, I dunno." Tobias replied.

"Can we put the telly on?" Harry asked.

Tobias reached for the remote.

"Good idea."

They were all slowly coming to the realisations about who and where they were when Eileen came down the stairs, dressed for work to go to the shop.

Severus and Aphrodite, both insanely early risers, had opened at 6. It was Christmas Eve, so they were opening early and closing early.

She stopped and looked at the three men sitting on the couch.

She couldn't help but think to herself that the family resemblance was uncanny.

"How about breakfast, Toby?" she asked.

"Huh? Oh. Right. Where's me kilt?"

Eileen handed it to him.

Tobias put his kilt on and wandered into the kitchen, where he began to bang pots and pans around.

It was the third or fourth day since Harry had arrived for his family visit, and it didn't take long to see that his personal eccentricities were not at all unusual in his family. Harry could see his grandparents were quite eccentric, and they did a lot of fighting followed by rather overly affectionate making up that made Harry think it was good to observe Snape's advice not to come into any room without knocking. He could see where all it would take was some booze to turn these people into maniacs, but it was very obvious to Harry that they were sorry about the way they had treated their son, and that they did love him, after all, and wanted to make it up to them.

Snape wasn't any different to his Mum and Dad than he was to anyone else, except his mother could out-snark him any day of the week. He didn't seem tense at all around them, like he sometimes was at Hogwarts; they were probably the only people he was sure wouldn't hate him for being his usual, miserable self.

Actually, Snape was being much more miserable than usual. Harry wasn't sure if it was because they were going to Hermione's parents' house for dinner that night, or if he really hated Christmas that much, but he decided to keep his gob shut.

Harry didn't relish tangling with Snape when he was in one of his really bad moods, but the Old Man's parents had no such compunctions.

"Fuck me, lad, we're ugly enough in this fam'ly wi' out pullin a long, scowlin' face all the time. Cheer up, lad. It's Chrimble. What makes yer so miserable over it? We're all together as a family, for the first time since our Harry was in nappies. Don't look so fuckin' grim." Tobias suggested.

"Maybe I would like Christmas more if you two maniacs hadn't beaten me half to death with an extension cord over my first holidays from Hogwarts." Snape shot back.

"'Ere 'e goes again, Ellie."

"Oh, boo-fucking-hoo, Severus! Cry me a river, will you? You only remember what we did to you! What you conveniently forget is that you were Rosemary's Baby! I admit, we overreacted, because we were drunk, but we did catch you trying to burn the house down! If I didn't practise magic, we'd all be dead! " Eileen reminded him.

"You were trying to burn the house down?" Harry asked

"I was drunk!" Snape protested.

"You were eleven!" Harry exclaimed.

"Yes, but he was still drunk. The minute he was old enough to reach the table, it was drink, drink, drink! We tried to hide the booze from him but when we did that, he'd go into my lab and drink up all the potions! Anything! Then he'd go off his head. I know it's out fault, for not being the best parents, but the things Damien, here, did when he was a kid! Our neighbour had this fucking wicked rottweiler mutt that was the terror of the neighbourhood. One day it bit your mother and your father got out the wand he'd got hold of the gods only know how and put the Death Curse on it in front of the whole neighbourhood. The Aurors were everywhere! They nearly took him from us, then! He was only seven! The Death Curse, at seven! I'll never forget the look on his face when he tried to burn us all up. He's standing in front of the tee and the flames are shooting up towards the ceiling and the drapes are on fire, and he's laughing like a maniac and clapping his hands. This is an eleven-year-old child I'm talking about. Your father, Harry, when he's good he's very good , but when he's bad, he's Charlie Manson." Eileen explained.

"You deserved it." Snape sulked.

Tobias began to laugh.

"We had some kind of fucking holidays in those days. D'you remember when you were in your 6th year, an' you came to visit us on the sly and you brought Lily?" Tobias asked.

"Oh, gods? What set us off that time?" Snape asked.

"I dinna ken. It had a lot to do with cheap rotgut whiskey and that Hell's Horntail shit you brought around. You shoulda seen it, Harry! We had a proper fight, we did, your father and I. Ellie and Lily had to, what's it called, stupefy us to keep us from killin' one another. We really ;ad it out. Busted up the 'ole parlour of the old place in the End, and done one another up a treat. And when we come to, I got up, and I helped Sev up, and I spit a tooth onto the floor and slapped him on the back and I said 'That's' my boy, he's a man now for sure.' An' we had another bottle or two, and had a fine time. What a bunch of loons we are." Tobias recalled.

Harry started thinking about some of the crazy things he did when he was high, or drunk, and he laughed to himself.

"Do you remember at the Yule Ball in fifth year, I came up to the Faculty table, with smoke from the Horntail I was drunk on still coming out of me nose and I told you that you were a fucking nasty, evil, wicked old screw, and that you must have fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down? You were furious!" Harry asked Snape.

Tobias laughed, uproariously.

"And I picked him up, threw him over me shoulder and I tossed him right out of the school. He stood up, turned around and punched me right in the face. Broke me fucking nose. I didn't hit him back, I just pointed me wand at him and cast "_Divesto_" Left him naked out in the cold for half and hour and when I thought better and came out to get him and put him to bed, I couldn't find him. He'd gone to Hagrid's hut, and Hagrid lent him one of his big fur coats. They were having tea when Harry got up and wandered off and we both went looking for him. We found him in the woods, and he was high as a kite and happy as a clam, singing "19th Nervous Breakdown" and pissing his name in the snow." Snape finished.

He laughed too, and so did Harry.

Eileen smiled and shook her head.

"You Snapes and your war stories." She observed.

Harry couldn't help but warm to his grandparents, immediately. After all, he never expected to have any such people in his life and they might have been a bit nuts, but so was he. It was as if he could finally see where he'd come from in the world, looking at pictures and spending time with these people who reminded him so much in so many ways of himself. Even the most horrendous of his horrible tales of depravity seemed as droll and humorous to his rather cheerfully depraved family as they did to himself.

But, then again, everybody knows that there's nothing a bunch of reformed drunks and junkies like to do better than get together and reminisce about the Bad Old Days, and try to outdo one other.

***

Meanwhile, as Harry and his grandfather flopped in front of the telly all day and ate Christmas biscuits, Snape obsessed over the upcoming and quite dreaded visit to the Grangers for Christmas Eve dinner.

Harry was all ready to go in jeans, and a tee shirt and flannel, and he was utterly gobsmacked when Snape came down the stairs wearing his best teaching robes. He'd just washed his hair and it looked like he'd taken the time to comb it.

All the Old Man did was give Harry a dirty look, and that was enough to make him run upstairs and put on a button-down shirt and a wool waistcoat and comb his hair.

"Dinna make 'im go out to John's gaff lookin' like a fuckin' poof! ' Arry, go back upstairs and put on wot you 'ad on earlier, today. You too, Sev. Yuh look like yer goin' to a bishop's funeral." Tobias complained.

"I do have a Happy Christmas jumper that Mrs. Weasley made for me that I've never worn. It's got reindeer and little trees on it." Harry suggested.

Snape waited in the car with a little smile on his face, as Eileen patiently tried several combinations of potions to cause the antlers and Rudolph nose that he'd hexed onto Harry's face and head disappear.

"It's nice to see your father's finally gettin' into the spirit of Chrimble." She commented.

***

Harry and Snape both arrived at the Granger home, dressed a bit less formally, and Harry without the slightest hint of the Rudolph Hex.

"If you do anything to embarrass me, in retaliation, Potter, so help me, I'll make you grow warts on your cock. With hairs growing out of them. Permanently." Snape threatened.

"You mean like your face?" Harry replied.

Just then, Hermione opened the door.

She had her wand in her hand.

"I want both of you to behave. Completely." She hissed.

The house wasn't exactly spotless, but it didn't look as lived in as his family's home. That, however was not the first thing Harry noticed when he walked into the house.

"Snape, do you see that? Cor! Look at it. Ain't it beautiful?" Harry fairly squeaked.

"When we get our dirty little hands on all Tom Riddle's money, I'll buy a set up like this."

Hermione tried not to laugh. Harry and Snape were staring at her father's 72 inch telly and his surround sound system like it was a roomful of naked women.

"D'you have satellite?" Harry asked.

"Yes." Hermione said.

All their differences forgotten, Snape and Harry sat in front of the telly and began trying to figure out the remote.

"Da? Would you come in and help Harry and Sev figure out the remote?" Hermione called.

Dr. Granger was inordinately proud of his home entertainment system, so he was more than glad to brag about it to his guests.

"I've got summat like 1000 channels. I even get those new Wizarding Channels wot 'ave just come out for Muggle-borns and half-bloods. And people like me. There's an all-Quidditch network. I think it's Channel 903." John explained.

That was enough to keep Harry and Snape glued to the telly.

As Hermione had planned.

She made a big show of going into the kitchen to cook with her mother.

Actually, they weren't cooking anything. Hermione and Olive were taking the year off. She had paid Dobby and Winky to prepare dinner. They refused to take money, so she gave them some new clothes. Therefore, the house elves had dinner well in hand and they were going to go out and spend the afternoon browsing at the bookstore and having tea.

Olive peeked into the parlour.

"They're right out. I could 'ave been dancing about wi the tea towel on me head. You could detonate a small thermonuclear device in there and that lot wouldn't notice it. C'mon, lets go."

"Dobby has your coats. And we will lock the kitchen door. No one will ever know the difference." He said, winking, conspiratorially.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Dobby. And you too, Ms. Winky. And to think people call a woman as witch as if it's a bad thing."

Olive and Hermione exited out the back door amid the sounds of pots and pans banging together and the men cursing the telly.

***

Sitting in front of the great feast that Hermione and her mother, who both looked quite tired, had prepared, Harry felt bad. Here he'd sat sitting watching Quidditch and shoot-em-ups all day long, while Hermione and Mrs. Dr. Granger slaved away in the kitchen.

"I feel like such a pig, Hermione. I'll do the dishes." Harry volunteered.

"I don't think there's any need for that, Potter." Snape muttered, under his breath.

Hermione gave him a disbelieving look.

"You know?" Hermione whispered

"Of course I know. I know everything that goes on at Hogwarts. I have eyes everywhere." Snape whispered back.

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Big Brother is watching you." She quipped.

Meanwhile, John Granger was absolutely attacking the food.

"Olive, this is the best dinner you've ever made! When did you and Hermione learn to cook?' he asked, between mouthfuls.

"It's magic, Da." Hermione said.

"I could use some magic like this around here." John enthused.

That was all he had to say.

Winky came running out of the kitchen, wearing a tea cosy and braces hooked to her mismatched socks, with tears in her wide elfin eyes.

All things considered, John Granger took it very well.

"Winky will cook every day for Master and Mistress Granger. And clean. And do laundry. If only they will accept Winky into their home. Winky has not had a family to look after for so long, and you all seem so nice." The house-elf piped, wringing her hands together.

"But Winky! You're liberated, now." Hermione reminded her.

"I keep telling you, Granger, house elves don't want to be liberated. They want to be bound to a nice family and look after them." Snape reminded her.

"Bound? What's bound?" John asked.

"You pledge yourself to look after the house elf, and they look after you." Harry answered, simplyfying things.

"How much do we pay her?" Olive asked.

"You don't. House elves don't take money. Some people mistreat their house elves and they're horrible to them, and the poor things stay on out of loyalty. They aren't even allowed to wear clothes." Hermione sniffed.

"Why that's terrible! What's your name, dear?" John asked Winky.

"Winky, sir."

"Well, we certainly don't want to take your clothes. However, you may want to consider some advice on what to wear, considering you've gt a tea cosy on. And if you won't take money, then we'll give you room and board. I'll have to knock together a little bed for you, and a mirror and such. I can build you a little room in the corner of our rec room. A new DIY project. And none of this master and mistress stuff. You call me John, and the missus Olivia, and our Hermione just plain Hermione, and we'll call you Winky. How does that sound, erm, Winky?"

The little elf began to cry.

"Winky is so happy! She will look after Hermione at Hogwarts, too!" she exclaimed.

The Grangers, including a rather unwilling Hermione, could feel the little elf's happiness in the magical bonds that enveloped them.

Hermione was about to say something, but Snape elbowed her gently.

"Don't ruin Winky's Chrimble. Remember, Granger, just because you think that something should be a certain way, that doesn't mean everyone has to agree with you." He told her.

"If you can teach her that Severus, you're the best professor in the world," Olivia commented.

"Harry! Say something!" Hermione insisted.

"Okay. Winky, this is some of the best ham I've ever tasted. Is there some more in the kitchen?"

"Certainly! Winky will get you some!" the house elf cried, and ran into the kitchen.

"We'll have to go out and get our Winky a nice prezzie." John commented.

"Right after dinner." Olive agreed.

***

After dinner, the Granger family and their guests all sat around John's massive telly, with Harry drowsing under the weight of the food he had eaten.

"Don't you lot have some kind of services you have to go for? It's the Winter Solstice, innit it?" John Granger asked.

"Isn't that the biggest pagan holiday of the year? Doesn't it have some magical significance?" Olive asked.

Seeing as how John had unbuttoned his fly and unbuckled his belt, Snape decided it wouldn't be impolite to follow suit.

"Actually, tonight is one of the most important nights of the year for the pursuit of High Magick. A night of great mystical significance." He replied.

"So, you'll be leaving then?" Olive asked.

Snape belched, thoughtfully.

"What's on telly, Potter?" he asked.

"Oooo, look, Snape. It's the Dirty Harry marathon. All four movies in one night." Harry replied.

"Fuck no. One night's like another. Happy Chrimble to me." Snape announced.

"Good. All those drunken slobs at these Solstice Festivals, it's just an excuse for them to grope you. You can say what you want about the C of D services at the standing stones, but at least there's no drunken slobs pouring wine all over you while they try to reach down the front of your robes." Hermione complained.

"Yeah. They make like it's a religious thing, crawlin' up your leg. Nastiest bints you ever wnated to see. And half of them naked. Wicked." Harry agreed.

"And you stand for that, Severus?" John asked.

"Potter can take care of himself. So can our Hermione, actually. Still, even if I wanted to go, I think I'm still banned. I 'ad a bit of a disagreement with this geezer who was getting a bit too friendly with our Hermione." Snape replied.

"I liked the part where you made him pick up his teeth." Hermione added.

"Fucking Thelemites. Any Muggle dumb enough to follow Crowley ought to have his head examined, but wizards? Fucking Thelemites." Snape sniped.

***

Christmas Eve dinner at the Granger's may have been casual, laid-back, and enjoyable, but, over at the Burrow, with every Weasley on God's Green Earth, and their wives, it was absolute pandemonium.

Ginny tried to make herself scarce, but her mother drafted her into KP duty early in the morning and kept her there all day long.

She stuffed two turkeys, made three pies, two batches of four kinds of potatoes and washed the same dishes at least ten times.

Finally, it was time to put all the food out on the table, and Ginny drafted Ron into helping her out while Molly got dressed. She hardly noticed the doorbell ringing, and she didn't notice the clamour quieting down considerably, and she was incredibly pissed off when her father asked her to come into the parlour.

For once in their lives, every Weasley on God's Green Earth were completely silent, and they stared at Ginny like she had five eyes and ten tits.

They were all goggling in shock at the unexpected guest.

Molly was biting her lip as if she was trying to keep in a laugh, and Arthur greeted him with genuine, if confused, bonhomie.

"Well, this is certainly unexpected, Luke. Happy Christmas." He said.

"I'm sorry to drop in on you, unannounced on Christmas Eve, but it's come to my attention that my son has sent you a sort of Christmas present that would be in very poor taste, indeed. Did you happen to receive a large green and black and red package via owl post this morning, Arthur."

"Yes. It's under the tree. It isn't anything, dangerous, is it?"

"Can we speak privately?" Lord Malfoy asked.

"Sure. Molly, let's all go in the kitchen. Alright Weasley family, it's just a little Ministry business. Enjoy yourselves." Arthur announced.

Ginny followed her mother and father, Luke, and a rather unhappy-looking Draco into the kitchen as life started up again in the parlour, led by Fred and George.

Good old Fred and George.

Arthur handed Lucius the package as soon as they got to the kitchen.

"No, it's nothing dangerous. Just a nasty, mean-spirited prank on Draco's part. I'll take care of it for you. Draco, apologise to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, and Ginevra. Now."

Draco looked sullen.

"I'm sorry."

"Why don't I believe that? You will be when you're grounded for the rest of your holidays from Hogwarts."

"But Dad!"

"Be silent! You're lucky I don't burn all of your Christmas presents! As I said, Arthur, Molly, Miss Weasley, I'm very sorry about this."

Ginny tried not to laugh at the look on Draco's face.

"Luke, you don't have to worry about some prank of Draco's landing you in trouble. We know who's side you're on." Arthur reassured him.

Very briefly, Malfoy glanced at Ginny, but not briefly enough so that Molly didn't notice. She looked at Lucius Malfoy, and then at Ginny, and a little light went on in her head.

So, _he_ was the other man.

Molly was relieved.

She had thought it was someone much, _much_ worse.

"Arthur, why don't you let me take care of this? Go and see what's going on in the parlour; we've left the twins alone for too long." She said.

Arthur was glad to leave the confusing situation to his wife, and he handed her the package and gratefully exited.

Molly threw the package into the fire.

"Draco, you didn't take nasty pictures of your own father with my Ginny, did you?"

"Certainly not! If he'd done that, I'd ground him until he was thirty! They concerned Mr. Potter. Draco, I want to talk to Mrs. Weasley, privately. Floo yourself home." Lucius told him.

Draco was only too glad to escape his humiliation.

"You know, Mum?" Ginny asked.

"I thought there was someone besides Harry. And thank the Gods it wasn't who I thought it was. You heard Lucius. He said privately. Go get dressed for dinner."

"But Mum!"

"Go!"

Ginny left the kitchen, muttering under her breath.

"Well, Lucius, I hope that your intentions towards my daughter are somewhat honourable. Considering the kind of damage you've done to her already."

"Molly, that was more Tom Riddle's doing than mine. My intentions are more than somewhat honourable. Stupid old fool that I am, I've fallen in love with her. After all this is over, and after Ginevra had finished university and she's past 21, I intend to ask her to become my second wife."

You could have knocked Molly Weasley over with a feather.

"What about Harry Potter?" she asked.

"I have no objection to having Harry Potter as a brother-by-law." Malfoy answered.

"And Narcissa?"

"She doesn't, either."

Tactfully, Malfoy left out that Narcissa was among the candidates to be Harry Potter's Sponsor in his studies in the Discipline of Sex Magick, once he qualified in the First Degree and got out of theory and into practise.

"Lucius, I don't know what to say. If you're doing this to make up for what Tom Riddle did to Ginny, it's not necessary. You do know what he did to her, I presume."

"The same thing he did to me when I was a boy. Nothing and no one can make up for that. No, Molly, I want to marry your daughter because I've fallen in love with her. And I want to protect her, and Harry Potter, from that which Tom Riddle put inside their souls. Severus can't save the whole world on his own, you know."

"No, I suppose he can't. Well, I won't say anything to her; I'll let it wait until the time comes. Would you like to stay for dinner?"

"No, I have my own dinner at Malfoy Manor to attend. Would you tell Ginevra that I said Happy Christmas?"

"Oh, hell, Luke, its Christmas, why don't you go and tell her yourself?"

Malfoy raised an eyebrow.

But, then again he supposed Arthur and Molly didn't come by their seven children in a mail order catalogue.

"I'll just wish her a happy Christmas, and then I'll be on my way." He assured Molly.

"Good. I don't want to hold up dinner any longer. The natives are getting restless."

***

Roughly fifteen minutes later, dinner commenced, with Ginny sitting in her usual spot with Fred on one side of her and Ron on the other.

"Well, you look awfully happy and chipper for someone who's been slaving over a hot stove all day." Ron commented.

_Five minutes with Luke will do that for you._ Ginny thought.

"She's just thinking about going to see Harry tonight, to give him his special Christmas present." Fred teased.

_That's not a bad idea. Why should I cancel my plans to spend the night with Harry? After all, that's what it was made for, it's not about to wear out. I'll just take another shower, what the hell?  
_

"Belt up, or I'll belt you." Ginny warned.

"You are so disgusting! How can you talk like that about your own sister while you're eating?" Ron asked.

"This coming from Moaning Myrtle's boyfriend." George added.

"Fuck you! Fuck you both, sideways, with a rusty metal dick!" Ron replied.

They were far enough down the table that Arthur and Molly couldn't hear, but Charlie cleared his throat, loudly, and Bill was trying not to laugh.

"That's a good one. Where did you hear that?" Fred marvelled.

"It's one of Harry's."

"I like that. We'll have to remember that, won't we, George?"

"Definitely. Let's put it on a tee shirt. With a picture." George decided.

"What are you boys whispering about down there?" Molly asked.

"Business, Mum." Bill answered, and half the family fell about.

***

Ginny realised her brilliant idea had some snags to it when she tumbled into some dark hearth in the Snape-Prince home and realised that 1) She didn't know where Harry was 2) It was dark and everyone was asleep and 3) She had never been to Liverpool in her life so 4) she was fucked if anything went wrong.

She stumbled around in the dark, cursing and banging into things looking for a light switch when the lights came on in the room.

Ginny took it that the massive ginger fellow in the kilt with the furry chest and massive arms, one of which was tattooed with an anchor like Popeye, was Snape's Dad.

"Hi. Erm, sorry to wake you, I'm Harry's girlfriend, Ginny. Ginny Weasley. I ah, wanted to wish him an, erm, 'Appy Christmas." Ginny explained

"Yuh didn't wake me, lass. Harry an' I was watchin' Dirty Harry on telly. C'mon into the parlour." Tobias said, amiably.

She finished watching the movie with Harry and his grandfather, and then they all trudged upstairs.

"Well, time to throw the ol' lady a bone for Chrimble! See yer in the morning, 'Arry!" Tobias announced, before retiring to his bedroom.

"Me room's this way. We've got some serious work to do. Tonight's a night of high magick and great mystical significance." Harry told Ginny.

"I've been to ceremonies already, tonight, Harry."

"Not like these. As a soon to be Master in the First Degree of Sex Magick, I can't let the winter solstice go by without performing my rites." Harry said, solemnly.

He held the door open for Ginny.

"Well, since you put it that way, I'd be glad to help you. In just about any way I can." Ginny leered.

She walked into the room, and Harry looked both ways, then closed the door, locked, and warded it.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night, indeed.


	4. Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time

**Chapter Four: Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time**

Harry's first real family Christmas morning began in the afternoon.

For one thing, when he woke up, Ginny had gone home.

He wasn't sure when she left, or how, but she was gone.

And the Old Man was downstairs, bellowing at him.

"Potter! It's nearly noon! Your entire fucking family would like to fucking well open their fucking prezzies for Chrimble, now! Put some goddam trousers on, and get you arse downstairs, now! If you're not in this fucking parlour in ten fucking minutes, I don't care where the fuck we bleedin' well are, I will take fifty fucking points from Gryffindor!"

Harry leapt out of bed, ran for the loo, and ran out, pulling on his pants. He nearly forgot to activate the glamour on his tattoo, so he pulled on a shirt from the floor in the hallway, anybody's shirt, just to cover it up.

"I'm here! I'm here!" Harry said.

The shirt he had pulled on was baggy on him, as it belonged to his barrel-chested grandfather, but Harry hardly noticed, as he gawked in amazement.

Everyone else was dressed as if to leave.

"Erm, where are we going?" Harry asked.

"To the Hogwarts Christmas dinner." Snape said, crossly.

"But that's not until four!" Harry protested.

"Harry, lad, it's two-thirty." Tobias told him.

"Really? Fuck me, I must have really overdone it last night." Harry mused.

"Well, 'Appy Chrimble anyway. Let's open the prezzies and go eat. I'm starving." Tobias replied.

***

With Harry dressed in more suitable clothes, the whole family returned to Hogwarts in time for the school's Christmas dinner.

It was the first time Harry had ever attended the Faculty Dinner, which was quite a different experience from attending the student dinner.

For one thing, Dumbledore and McGonagall didn't pretend they weren't married.

And everybody who wasn't trying to stay sober got drunk.

Not tipsy. Or slightly inebriated. No, the entire faculty who were not WAND members got 100% Brahms and Liszt, legless, piss drunk.

Sirius was there too, as Professor Trelawney's guest. He was in WAND for Purple Doom, but nonetheless tried to stay away from booze, except at these sorts of occasions, wherein he got drunk as a lord.

Harry found himself sitting between his father and Remus Lupin, all three of them stuck at the end of the table.

"Why are we way down here?" He asked Snape.

"Because both of you have the table manners of a werewolf."

"So? Table manners are for pooves and li'le girls! More food down'ere at the trough!" Tobias boomed.

Harry ate, and ate, and ate, and ate until he felt like he was going to explode.

Then, he had dessert.

Before the toasts, an inebriated Sirius stumbled down the table to talk to his old school chums.

"Lookit Sibyl. Izzzznt she beauuuuutiful?" he asked.

"Erm, yes." Lupin said, uncomfoirtably, smiling apologetically at his wife.

"Well, Snape, ol buddy, ol pal? Watchooo 'finkin'? Yer 'fink sheeezzzzz beeeeauuuutiful too?" Sirius asked.

"I'm well aware of that, Sirius." Snape replied, drily.

"Yeah, well, yoooou lot better keep yer wicks outr her wax, yunno?"

Remus put his head in his hands.

"Not now, Padfoot." He muttered.

"Whynot? Gawdammit, oi? Right? Lisssen, Harry, back in the dzeeventies, yunno, Ol' Snape and me good mate Moony and Arabella On-Her-Baxter and my cuzzzin Cissy an' good ol' Malfoy, they had thizzz HELLFIRE club called the Order of the Satyr. Thozzz whoo liff 'igh doogether, dies, dooogether. An you know wot they uzzzzed to do?" Sirius asked.

Remus Lupin looked like he wanted to make himself very small and hide in the carpet fibres of the rug under his chair.

"No, Sirius. Tell me." Tonks replied.

"They uzzed to get reeeeeeeealy fuckin' drunk and reeeeeealy fuckin' high an shag one another rotten!" Sirius replied.

"Sirius? That's enough tripping down memory lane, for now, dear. Why don't you stagger back to your chair and have a nice nap, and I'll wake you up when it's time for you to make your toast." Professor Trelawney suggested.

"Hokay, Sibyl!" Sirius cried.

He turned to Snape and Lupin, and wagged an accusatory finger in their faces.

"Not a finger! D'yer 'ear me! Not a fuckin' finger d'yer lay on me Sibyl. Happy Christmas, anyways." He said, and staggered back to his seat.

"Oi, Snape, that's some kind of triumvirate of birds you got there. Are you lot accepting new members? I mean if you 'ave to like 'igh livin' an' fucking and cheap thrills, shit, sign me up. I been lookin' for something to do for fun since I got sober. I'd like to 'ave a crack at those three." Harry told his father.

"Shut up, Potter. You're not old enough. And you're sure as shit not ready for the Three Witches of the Satyr. Not before you're at least a First Degree Sex Magus. You need a lot more fucking practise. And I do mean fucking practise." Snape replied.

"The Order of the Satyr, oi? Is that why you've got that tattoo of a satyr playing the pipes sporting two huge horns and an immense plonker on your thigh?" Tonks asked her husband.

Remus began to blush and sputter.

"Yes. That's why."

"And you and Luke Malfoy are the other geezers in this club? Like 'Arry says, Snape, are you lot accepting new members? I got to First Degree. It was the only one of the Five Disciplines I was ever any good at, besides Magick of the Arts." Tonks asked.

"Nymphadora!" Lupin protested.

"By name and by nature, Moony. C'mon, what are we gonna do, read Witch Weekly and eat at the Leaky Cauldron all out lives? We never go out, anymore. And Dad will sit for us, if we 'ave a night out, to socialise with old friends."

Lupin couldn't even speak, he just started stammering and huffing and puffing.

Harry looked worriedly at his old professor.

"Steady on, lad. Let's just listen to the toasts." Tobias suggested.

The toasts were not very interesting at all, and mercifully for Harry, he fell asleep during most of them.

Lupin elbowed him awake when Dumbledore stood, unsteadily, to make his toast.

Harry opened his eyes and realised he had fallen asleep on Tonks.

"Sorry!" he said about six times, trying to wipe the pool of drool off her chest with his napkin.

"S'awright, 'Arry." Tonks said.

"Ladeees and zhendelemen. I hope you've all had a lurvely Chriss-mass this yaer an I wanna thanka houszelves fer makin suzzzchanizze dinner. I'm so glad that we're all alive here and in one piezze. And we've managed to get Harry zzzoober, which is more'n I c'n zzzzay for me. Merry Chrizzmazz an Happy Neeew Year."

Dumbledore lifted his glass, and wobbled oh his feet.

McGonagall got up and steadied him.

She took the glass and put it on the table.

"I think you've had enough, Albus." She told him.

Harry lifted his glass of Coke.

"God bless us every one!" he said.

That got a big laugh.

***

After dinner, Tobias and Eileen and Severus Sr. and Aphrodite returned home.

Harry got lots of hugs and pats on the back and he promised to come and visit soon.

In the further event of having a family Christmas Harry went to the old man's dungeon to watch Monty Python.

He had, with much trepidation bought his father a prezzie for Chrimble, as Snape put it, in the form of an antique mithril cauldron after years of hearing him complain that there were some potions you cold never get right in an iron alloy cauldron because iron and magic went together like oil and water.

It cost Harry a lot of money, but he had a lot of money, so he bought it.

Snape was both surprised and thrilled to the extent that he gave Harry a brief hug, and Harry hugged him back.

It was a bit awkward, but, in the end, it wasn't so bad.

Snape had gotten Harry a present too.

A potion in a little blue vial that if poured over the wreck of any car, would return it to its original state, with whatever modifications the wizard using it intended and protect it ever after from any kind of wear and tear.

He had also arranged, through his contacts with a half-blood in WAND who's father was a Muggle member of NA highly placed in the Muggle government to get Harry's suspended driver's license reinstated and pending charges against him for drunkenness-in-charge and public intoxication dropped on the grounds that he had completed a treatment program through his school and was reformed and recovered.

After the exchange of gifts, the two men got into telling war stories, and not the kind about battles they had fought in.

"…and then, after I sign her tit, she just goes absolutely nuts, and she bends over the sink and she lifts up her robes, and her skirt and she says, 'I'm ready! I'm ready! Put it in me!' Just like that!"

Snape was laughing so hard, he thought he was going to cry.

"Well, I figured, what the fuck? So I did it. And she started to scream. I mean scream like a siren. So I put my hand over her mouth. I mean I didn't want people to think I was killing her. And she starts pounding on me leg. And I'm thinking, shit, I'm going to have a bruise there, tomorrow. I'm also wondering why I'm doing this at all, but well, yunno how it is. So here's the best part. So, I'm fucking this crazy witch, whoever she is, and I've got my hand over her mouth and she's bent over the sink, and I'm just about to get me nut, when who walks in the door but…get this…Neville Longbottom!"

"Oh no! Not Neville! Not Neville!"

Harry was laughing too.

"Yes! Neville! He just looks at me for a minute and then he yells, "Harry, what the hell are you doing?" And I realise, with my hand over her mouth and her beating on me leg, it must look like I'm, I'm fucking raping this girl. In the loo at the Leaky Cauldron, yet. So, I take my hand off the girl's mouth and she starts screaming all these filthy things, and moaning. And d'you know what Neville says?"

"I can only imagine?"

"He says, 'Blimey, Harry, you'd better cover her mouth up, again. I'll watch the door for you till you're done.' That's what he said! It was!"

Harry reached into the pocket of his robe for his English Ovals, and found he was all out.

"Here, take one of mine. Have you ever heard of Arabella McMasters?" Severus asked.

`Harry rolled his eyes.

"Who hasn't? You can't hardly breathe that she isn't somewhere talking about the dangers of this song, or that book, or some movie. She and those dried-up old prudes in WHAP (Witch Housewives Against Pornography) picketed the opening of Fred and George's Shop because they said their products would have a corrupting influence on young witches and wizards."

Snape smiled, evilly.

"Arabella was in my graduating class. She was a member of Slytherin house, actually. And she is not a dried-up old prude. WHAP is just a cover. She always did have an evil sense of humour. Arabella is one of six Third Degree Sex Magi in Britain. You probably know her better by her maiden name. Arabella Baxter."

Harry's jaw unhinged.

"You're fucking joking?"

"No, I'm not. And she's not just in it for spiritual enlightenment. When Led Zeppelin played in the Great Hall 1977, Arabella bragged for weeks about having shagged every member of the band, and all the roadies. Arabella didn't give a shit about the war, or what she was going to do with her life. She took fucking very seriously. It was her life's work. And for fun there was always getting high and partying. She was a very popular witch, I can assure you of that. Arabella was one of the few women who went to this school who didn't mind being seen with me in public. But, after she founded her anti-everything crusade, I imagined that she had indeed turned into a dried up old prude. As it turns out, I was wrong."

"No!"

"Yes. I think I'd been teaching for about three years, and WHAP and WAND both gave a presentation to the older Hogwarts students in the Great Hall. Arabella acted like she didn't even know who I was, so you can imagine my surprise when I heard pounding on me door in the middle of the night. I was actually asleep, so got out of bed, put on my bathrobe and stumbled over to the door. And there was Arabella Baxter. Before I could say a word, she casually unbuttoned her robe and all she had on under it was a purple teddy and some thigh-high fishnet stockings. And she hadn't turned into any old bag, either. Then, she reached inside my bathrobe, grabbed hold of my old fellow, and said 'So, Severus, how have you been doing?' Normally I despise hypocrisy, but in that case, I found I had to make an exception. She's come back, since and I haven't turned her away, yet. "

"Oh that was evil! Evil!" Harry laughed.

"Well I do despise hypocrisy. I have never pretended to be anything less than the mean, rotten, evil bastard that I am. Son."

It was the "son" that did it. Both of them just fell about, so much so that they didn't notice Hermione and her bag arrive in the Potion master's rooms.

"Oh, hello, Hermione." Harry said.

Snape abruptly rest himself to Dour Professor Mode

"That was quite a funny story, Potter, but you'd better be off now."

"Oh sure. Good night Professor. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas, Hermione."

Harry exited rapidly.

Hermione eyed his exit, suspiciously, and shot Snape a dirty look.

He pretended not to notice.

"So, this is an early present, then. I didn't expect you till tomorrow."

Snape cast a sealing spell on his quarters.

"Sev, are you drunk?"

"Of course I'm not fucking drunk! I haven't been drunk for nearly two decades. Why?"

"Because you and Harry seemed to be having an awfully good time."

"Well, Potter and I have each come to realise that the other is not such a bad sort, after all. Now that he's taking up his responsibilities and not acting like a spoilt little shit all the time, we can get along."

Hermione wasn't buying it, and she was just about done with Snape's pathetic attempts to conceal that he was Harry's old man.

Over the years there were things she had noticed, little things, certain similarities between her lover and her best friend. Not to mention the Potions master's generally, oh, _fatherly_ behaviour towards Harry. It was on the tip of her tongue to demand the truth, but she realised if she did that Snape would just coolly and outrightly lie to her, and work up some very convincing indignation that she would even suggest such a thing.

Which would really piss her off to no end. Besides, it was Chrimble, and no time for a showdown, so she decided to give Snape a break.

"I see. How was Chrimble with Harry?"

"Unremarkable."

And that was all she was going to hear about it.

Hermione was angry. She'd left her parents house on Christmas Day to be with him, and now Snape was giving her the cold shoulder.

Typical Snape. It wasn't as what he did at home with his family were classified secrets. But he was prepared to act like they were, of course.

She tried again.

"How was Chrimble at Hogwarts?"

"Oh, the usual."

"Dammit, Snape, if you're going to be like that, I'm going back home! You were all happy and chummy with Harry just a few minutes ago! Don't you have enough warm blood in your cold little reptile heart to make room for two people?" Hermione insisted.

He raised an eyebrow at her.

"Don't get angry with me, Hermione. Cold little reptile heart! I like that one. Pick up your things. C'mon over to the hearth and I'll show you your prezzie for Chrimble." Snape chuckled

They used the Floo network to go back to the Head Girl room, and with a theatrical flourish of his wand, Snape lit up all the lights.

On her desk, there was a slim, carved wooden box.

"Tap the lid with your wand." Snape encouraged her.

When Hermione unlatched the lid, it opened of its own accord and unfolded from itself a huge bookcase stuffed with titles, and a little table attached which had on it a mini-laboratory. There was even a blotter, a quill an inkwell and paper, and a little chair.

"You just tap the lid again and it all closes up. The box only weighs three pounds. This way you can take all of your work with you, anywhere. It's sort of like a laptop, but for wizards."

Hermione was beside herself.

"Snape, you're a fucking genius? Look at this! How did you do it? I love it."

"Magic?" Snape replied, smiling lopsidedly.

Despite the fact it was another one-word answer, Hermione happily threw herself into his arms for a big hug.

"One more thing. The school is deserted. I think we'd be safe, just this once, if I stay here with you, tonight."

He'd given her the gift of old books and musty chemicals, he was standing in her cold little room barefoot in a pair of faded ancient black jeans and a black tee shirt with a hole in it that said "Hogwarts Faculty, 1981" on it, but that suited Hermione just fine.

"Look at your poor, lonely little bed. For generations, Granger, so many Head Girls have lain in that exact poor, lonely little bed, oh, just dreaming of a man like me. A dirty, black-hearted old bastard." Snape joked.

"The dirtier and the more black-hearted, the better."

Snape bent Granger back in a big soul kiss, and he was about to start pulling up on her pullover when there was a knock on the door.

"Erm, it's Harry. It's early yet, and there's no one in Gryffindor Tower. And Professor Dumbledore is watching _It's a Wonderful Life_. I don't suppose anyone behind this door wants to eat leftovers and watch _Monty Python_?"

"I knew it was Potter. How did I know it was Potter?" Snape said, through gritted teeth.

"Aww, can't we let him in, Sev? We'll just watch one movie. And I still have the time turner."

"It's Chrimble. We can't tell him to get lost. Come in, Potter."

As Hermione went to get some plates, she pretended not to notice Harry had no shoes on, and a pair of faded black jeans and a Hogwarts Quidditch Champion tee shirt with the sleeves ripped off.

Harry pointed his wand at his Professor.

"_De-engorgio!" _Ididn't interrupt anything, did I, Snape?" Harry asked, smirking.

"Oh no, Potter. What ever would give you that impression?"

"Well, you know, it is Christmas, and families are supposed to share. I'm sure Hermione wouldn't mind it, if we stayed away from her arse, and we could always obliviate that part of her memory later…"

"Potter!"

"Just kidding. So how about the _Meaning of Life_?"

"Fine. Everyone into the hearth, I suppose." Snape sighed, resignedly.

He comforted himself on Potter's victory with the knowledge that the task that he and Remus and Albus had devised to keep them busy until school came back and test their mettle for the Final Battle was going to be quite a victory for him, indeed.

Even though Harry was full of Christmas cheer, he couldn't help but wonder, just a little bit what the old man was smiling about.


End file.
